Broken Boy
by fragmentedelle
Summary: Harry Potter is broken and ready to give up. Severus finds himself in the unusual position of wanting to help. Draco, Luna and a secret organisation called The Shade all have their parts to play too, because the balance of magic is faltering, and that means far worse things than just war. AU Snarry / SSHP
1. Chapter 1 - Three Things

Chapter 1.

Draco Malfoy could see three things wrong with the situation he found himself in as the Hogwarts Express tore over the countryside. Firstly, Luna Lovegood was in the Slytherin carriage. Secondly, as little attention as he paid to patently mad and blatantly mis-sorted Ravenclaws, even he knew that Lovegood never frowned, yet that was the expression which currently darkened her usually bright features. Thirdly, her hand was on his arm and she was talking to him about Potter.

The situation was so startling that Draco found he had allowed her to prattle on for several moments before he gathered the scattered pieces of his Malfoy sneer, wrenched his arm from pale, slight fingers and decided on stilling her blather with a clever and scornful comment. Unfortunately, his voice seemed to ignore the decision and all he managed was a rather confused, "What?"

The frown deepened and that damned hand was back on his arm, but this time it clutched at the sleeve of his robe. When she spoke again, her voice was little more than a whisper, though they were sat quite apart from the other students. "Harry Potter needs your help."

"So go and find the weasel and the mudblood," said Draco, too off balance to summon anything more than confused exasperation. "They'll be flashing their prefect badges and corralling the first years. Front carriage. Off you go."

But the lunatic was shaking her head. "No, Draco. He needs your help."

Maybe it was the idea of Gryffindor's Golden Boy needing something from him – a debt is always handy after all. Perhaps it was that uncustomary frown which didn't sit well with Lovegood's radish earrings. Maybe she'd cast a silent, wandless Imperius. Or maybe it was the way she said his name; as though the idea of he, Draco – not Malfoy, not the Slytherin Prince, not the Son of Death Eaters – just the idea of Draco helping someone wasn't ridiculous.

Whatever the reason, brief minutes later Draco Malfoy entering a compartment in the Gryffindor carriage. He closed the door behind him, his hand on his wand, just in case. It fell at what he saw.

Harry Potter was asleep but he looked far from peaceful. His face was a mess of bruises. His lip was split. His nose was bleeding. The neck of the oversized T-shirt he wore hung low enough that Draco could see ribbon-like red welts which he suspected extended far beyond where he could see. Draco could also see the boy's too-sharp collar-bones.

"Why would Granger and Weasley leave him looking like this?" Draco asked. His voice was composed despite the strange sense of - he didn't know what to call it - running through him.

Luna sat opposite the sleeping boy, but leaned forward and brushed a dirty length of black hair away from Potter's closed eyes. "He didn't look like this earlier," Luna replied, never taking her large, sad eyes from the boy's face. Her voice was small and scared when she continued. "There are so many alpies around him."

"Are you saying that someone did this to him today? Are there even spells that can emaciate someone this quickly?" In the back of his mind, Draco heard his father's voice admonishing him for displaying his ignorance. After all, there was a big difference between asking questions and demanding answers.

Luna's head shook, her hair catching the light of the afternoon September sun. "That's not what I meant. When he got on the train he looked like he looks. All smiles and happy and great-to-see-yous. His pretending is always good. Today it wasn't his usual standard, but good enough to stop eyes sticking more than usual."

Draco would have rolled his eyes if he could have taken them from the broken boy before him. "Do your best impression of a Ravenclaw, Lovegood, and make sense."

Luna's voice went flat as she took the colour from her words. "He always looks fine, but he hasn't really been fine. Not for a while. I don't know if the glamour is a recent addition to his pretence, but he was wearing one today. When Ronald and Hermione left to see to the first years, he struggled for a while to stay awake. I pretended to fall asleep so he wouldn't feel bad… He always tries really hard to not be rude to me…"

Draco could sense a tangent coming so he cut her off. "And when he fell asleep the glamour dropped. Right." Draco took a breath to get his thoughts in line. Harry Potter, boy wonder, was beaten, bloody and unconscious. He was completely at Draco's mercy with only Luna Lovegood between them. Yet he did not move to take advantage of the opportunity.

"Why have you brought this to me?" Draco asked the girl eventually.

Luna finally looked away from Harry's face and met Draco Malfoy's eyes. "Because he's covered in alpies. I knew you'd understand best."

Draco rubbed at his temple and clenched his jaw. At some point he'd have to have a word with himself and demand to know why in the name of Merlin's saggy nutsack he hadn't yet called Crabbe and Goyle to accompany him in hexing Wonder Wizard into oblivion. "Alpies?" he almost spat the word.

She still held his eyes, "Mean little mists. They feed on the pain of abhorrence and abuse. He didn't have them last term."

"Oh for the love of -"

Luna cut off Draco's angry mutter with a soft, sad whisper. "You had them too … after Christmas in our second year. A vicious vapour. They ate your pain while the pain ate at you."

Draco felt ice crawl through him, worse than any Dementor attack. Second Year. Father's Christmas party. Pansy holding out a glass to him while others danced. The bitter aftertaste. And more bitterness to follow.

Draco's Slytherin stoicism was no match for the bludgeon of Luna's words or his own memories. She couldn't know.

Draco Malfoy raised his wand and kept his eyes fixed on those of the young woman before him.

Luna Lovegood smiled reassuringly and nodded. "Good idea. That will be quicker than words and convincing."

"Legilimens," said Draco.

Severus Snape could see three things wrong with the situation he found himself in as the Hogwarts Express tore over the countryside. Firstly, thanks to the increased number of Death Eater attacks and a metaphorical short-straw, he was aboard the Hogwarts Express with a pink-haired Hufflepuff who wouldn't shut up. Secondly, something had been twitching and itching at the corner of his magic ever since he'd apparated to Platform 9¾. It felt like iron filings beneath his skin were being tugged at by a magnet. Thirdly, Draco Malfoy was standing in front of him with several hairs out of place and talking about Potter.

 **A/N**

 **This is my very first fanfiction in any genre. Hell, it's the first piece of writing I've ever held up for the world to poke at. I hope you like it. If you do, please let me know. If you didn't, be nice and constructive. I started this over on AO3, and people there pointed me in this direction.**

 **To get me started I'm playing with clichés and stuff I like.**

 **Any tips on making buddies in these parts would be happily received.**

 **Be nice!**


	2. Chapter 2 – Changed Certainties

Severus Snape's life often depended on his being able to read people and situations with almost prescient skill. He was a man who could walk into a room and establish an escape route, discern enemy from friend and have a planned repertoire of spells at the ready before his robes even stopped billowing from his entrance. One bad decision - one miscalculated manoeuvre - could realistically mean his death… or the death of someone else.

Once, such a mistake had meant the death of his most beloved friend. It was, perhaps, little surprise that he loathed the very idea of being wrong. That he might reject the very notion that an assumption might be erroneous.

He was fighting such a notion now - fighting it _hard_ \- because he _knew_ that Harry "Boy-Who-Lived" Potter was a spoilt brat who thought he was the exception to every rule. He _knew_ that Harry "Wunderkind" Potter was an arrogant whelp, whose abilities as a wizard were at best mediocre and at worst (particularly in the potions laboratory) made him a danger to himself and others. And he damn well _knew_ that Harry "Fucking" Potter was as vapidly popular and unreasonably adored as his vainglorious father had been.

After entering the compartment with the Lovegood girl and his godson, and taking a single glance at the sleeping boy, Severus Snape knew that Harry Potter was malnourished.

At closer proximity, he knew that Harry Potter was running a fever, had myriad cuts and bruises and (his nose told him this last) was sorely in need of a bath.

After several diagnostic spells, Severus Snape knew that Harry Potter had a concussion, two sprained wrists and a cracked coccyx. There was internal damage and tearing to both his throat and his anus. The latter perforation and resultant infection were causing the boy's fever.

After all of this, he knew that he had failed in his promise to protect the son of his truest friend. He knew he had been wrong.

Snape cast a quick Tempus and then turned, only to be once again caught completely off guard to find the Lovegood girl's wand out and a confident Expecto Patronum on her lips.

A spectral hare leapt from the tip of her wand and the young girl addressed it in her quiet but sure voice. "Seek out Madam Pomfrey and tell her we are bringing in a student in need of immediate care. If she is alone, tell her that the student is Harry and he shows signs of having been beaten and … and raped. _Only_ if she is alone. If she is not, tell her to gather potions for shock, infection, blood-loss and … umm…"

At last the girl raised questioning eyes at Snape. "Bone fractions and nutrient deficiency," he added, attempting to seem unsurprised by a corporeal - and apparently vocal - patronus. Draco Malfoy, however, had lost all semblance of indifference.

The girl completed the message and the hare hopped away.

"Ten points to Ravenclaw," said Snape, with a considering look at the girl.

"Harry taught us in fifth year," she shrugged.

Snape felt another surety crumble a little, but made no other reply. Instead his tone turned commanding. "We will arrive at the castle in short order. Miss. Lovegood, go and fetch Nymphadora Tonks. She is not difficult to spot in a crowd."

The girl smiled, an expression which fit her face far more comfortably, but her eyes were still worried as she sent Harry a last glance before leaving. Once she was gone, Snape turned at last to face his godson.

Harry Potter moved sluggishly towards consciousness. His head felt hot and heavy and he could feel every heartbeat as a painful throb behind his eyes and in his teeth. His throat was raw, his stomach was sick, it hurt to breathe. A sticky, itchy tightness below his nose suggested he'd been bleeding again. And a deeper, darker pain that radiated from his backside up to his lower back suggested that it wasn't just his nose that still bled.

For a moment, he wondered why he was struggling so hard to wake up. Sleep, after all, hurt less. Sleep let him…

Sleep.

Shit. Fuck. Fuck! He'd fallen asleep! His glamour!

Was Luna still asleep? Were Ron and Hermione back yet? Maybe it wasn't so bad. Perhaps he had time to wake up a bit, re-cast the glamour and fix a smile on his face before…

No. Those were voices he could hear.

Through a fog of sick exhaustion, Harry could do nothing but listen as he struggled to wake up properly.

Black eyes met silver across the cabin. The silence was uneasy. It was the tense, roiling silence of uneven footing and unsure alliances. It was the silence of a road forking, of paths diverging and of choices being made. It was a chasm of silence which Draco Malfoy knew he would have to cross first.

Long moments passed. The sleeping, broken boy leaning against the window seemed to stir a little, and Draco wondered if they had waited too long to speak plainly. Then Potter stilled once more.

However, the silence and their time was a knife edge growing sharper. He was going to get cut either way, so at last Draco spoke.

"You gave me a potions kit and a toy dragon for my fourth birthday, do you remember that?"

Snape's face was as closed as ever but he nodded sharply.

"Father didn't approve of toys. For my tenth, you took me to that museum in London. The portraits didn't move."

Another terse nod from the potions master.

"Father was livid. Muggle history isn't _our_ history. A painting can't be considered beautiful unless it can thank you for the compliment and tell you about their good breeding."

The slightest twitch at the corner of his godfather's mouth.

"That Christmas…" a deep shaking breath. "After what Pansy did… I think I was ready for everything to just be over. I would have…" _I wanted to die._ Draco could think it, but the words wouldn't come. There was no time to force them. Instead he moved on. "You were the one I came to, Severus. You gave me a calming draught and then we ate chips out of newspaper and they were good. I hadn't thought anything would ever be good again.

"Every time I couldn't be a perfect Malfoy, you let me just be Draco."

Severus Snape reached out and took his godson's hands between his own.

Draco's breath left him in a sigh of loss and liberation. There would be no going back after his next words. "Father took me to a meeting at the start of the summer. I saw what they do to the muggles they take. I can't… I won't be…" Again, the words wouldn't come.

Snape, however, had found his voice. "You aren't, Draco. Thank Merlin; you aren't."

Draco thought for a second that he might actually weep with relief, but instead both men sprang to their feet and reflexively drew their wands as the door flew open and a raging Ron Weasley stormed in.

As his glare swept the room, another chasm of silence formed. Another knife edge sharpened. And Harry Potter, conscious and composed and looking as healthy and whole as a young man could, smiled brightly at the red head and asked, "Everything okay, Ron?"


	3. Chapter 3 – Pushy Gryffindors

**Chapter 3 – Pushy Gryffindors**

Severus Snape's still-white-hot animosity for the Marauders was testament to the fact that he was not a forgiving man. However, he liked to tell himself that neither was he a man without reason or logic. As Harry Potter grinned up at the youngest Weasley boy, Severus thought he might just be able to forgive himself for having been so wrong about Lily's son, after all. The boy's mask was almost flawless. Only the dimmed lights behind the usually bright eyes, coupled with a slight stiffness of movement gave him away, and Severus suspected he only noticed these things because he now knew what to look for.

Evidently, the same observational astuteness was not also to be attributed to the increasingly confused-looking Weasley, as his response to Potter's question was to say, "You look fine." At least the angry flush was fading from the boy's face. It really had clashed horribly with his hair.

Snape rolled his eyes and stowed his wand, noticing that Draco did the same. Internally, he cursed himself for not having warded the door. Not even a Muffliato, for Merlin's sake! His standards were slipping all around, it seemed. To Weasley he said, "Ten points from Gryffindor."

"What!?" The receding crimson flush rose again in Weasley's cheeks. "Term hasn't even started!" He looked to Potter, as if expecting to find him equally incensed.

Potter simply shrugged and smiled in apparent confused amusement. It was perfectly performed, but Snape knew that – were Potter thinking clearly – indignant outrage would have been the better mask. Well, at least it wasn't just Snape who was slipping.

How should he play this? Why was Potter acting? Why had he not confided in his friends? And how long exactly had he been awake before Ronald Weasley made his subtle-as-ever entrance?

He was saved from making a decision by the dreamy tones of the Lovegood girl. "Oh, have you been given points too, Ron? I had some earlier." Her voice was lent an even more ethereal quality as it came from outside the door and thus seemed disembodied. She could not enter the compartment as the four men within already filled the space.

"Blimey, Professor!" Ah, and the many-hued-Hufflepuff. Excellent. "Never heard of you dishin' out points to anyone outside of Slytherin. What… wait." The usually jovial voice of Nymphadora Tonks suddenly flattened out and became concerned. "What did I give you for your last birthday?" The infernal woman began pushing and shoving her way into the room. She shrank herself down to waif-like proportions and clambered up onto the seat next to where Draco stood. She had to hunch over but her wand arm was steadily pointed over the top of Ronald Weasley's head at Snape.

Snape raised an eyebrow and replied, " _The Little Book of Calm_."

"Bloody hell! It really is you. Sorry; had to check; you understand." Her hair turned emerald green with a shimmering silver streak, by way of apology.

"Indeed," sneered Severus.

"What's going on in here?" asked yet another voice, and a bushy head of brown hair, bobbing up and down behind Weasley's shoulder, indicated to Severus that his day was about to become a lot more irritating.

Sure enough, Hermione Granger's bossy voice piped up again. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Ronald; let me through!"

Demonstrating all of the impatient impulsiveness of a Gryffindor, Granger shoved at her friend a little too hard. The boy lost his balance and toppled sideways into Nymphadora Tonks who, with her usual clownish inelegance, fell headfirst into Draco Malfoy. Draco's seeker-honed reflexes were usually excellent, but an armful of metamorphmagus coupled with an accidental backhand from a flailing Weasley, had him thrown off balance. He reached out and grabbed a hold of Severus' sleeve and, before the potions master could even think the first syllable of a balancing charm, all of them were falling.

The weight of bodies upon him. Pain blooming from aggravated injuries. Breath. Breath in his ear. Hands. Hands everywhere. Terror began to choke at him.

Harry felt his magic well and burst out of him as he opened his mouth and screamed.

He didn't stop until the blackness took him.


	4. Chapter 4 - Out with the Old

AN - Sorry all! No idea why it appeared as code and not rich text. I hope it's fixed now! Cheers to LGilbert1982 for the heads up! x

During his years as a spy, Severus Snape had learned the value of a good disillusionment charm coupled with stealthy movement. Breathe softy; stick to the shadows, and much could be learned. He was learning rather a lot as he waited for Poppy to conclude her meeting with Albus and Minerva.

Harry Potter lay in one of the beds, awake but silent. There was no smile on his face now and no glamour hid his injuries. The boy knew he'd been caught in his act already. His head was turned and he seemed to be gazing out of one of the large windows, but the dullness of his expression suggested he was not really seeing the early evening view.

For the first time since he had met him, Snape found that he couldn't see anything of James Potter in the young man's features. James had been brightness and arrogance - handsome lines and confident scruffiness. He had also been about as deep as a puddle.

The Gryffindor on the bed seemed an emotional blank canvas. His face was carefully expressionless and his eyes were curiously empty. He was hard lines and sharp points, without the soft fullness that should have been present in a man his age. He was starved and dirty with neglect. And beneath the carefully still surface, Severus could feel the boy's magic twisting and coiling. The iron filings under Severus' skin twitched towards the depths of roiling power there.

Beside Potter sat Granger and Weasley. If anything in the world could make a man appreciate the silence of solitude and shadows, it was the ceaseless suffocation of these two dunderheads. Merlin beyond, couldn't they see that the boy wanted a little peace? Worse than the noise were the actual words.

"You need to talk to us, Harry," said Granger.

"You should have told us, mate," said Weasley.

"Honestly, Harry, what were you thinking?" asked Granger.

"Why didn't you say something?" asked Weasley.

"You always do this – shut us out when you need us. It's self-destructive," said Granger.

"This is what we were talking about earlier, mate. There's always something. You make it so hard to _help_ you," said Weasley.

"What happened, Harry?" asked Granger.

"What's going on, Harry?" asked Weasley.

It went on. And on. Blame and questions and accusations. Severus pinched the bridge of his hooked nose and squeezed his eyes shut. In the name Salazar's single-eyed serpent, were they never going to _shut_ _up_? It was almost enough to make him admire the boy's stoic silence. This was not what he needed.

Just as Severus had decided that it was time to interrupt, a familiar scent and a light knocking stopped him. He looked up to see Draco and Lovegood stood in the doorway, holding hot, newspaper-wrapped bundles which smelled of vinegar and comfort. On the bed, Harry turned his head.

Draco lifted his chin, squared his shoulders and looked past the slack-jawed but mercifully-mute pair at the bedside, directly at Harry. "I… We thought you might appreciate something to eat."

Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger jumped to their feet and aimed their wands at the doorway.

"You did this," growled Weasley.

"Ron, 'Mione…" They were the first words Potter had said since arriving at Hogwarts, and he was ignored. From his place in the shadows, Severus Snape felt something inside him begin to burn.

The Lovegood girl took a step forward, deliberately placing herself at wand-point. "He was helping. I asked him to and he did. Would you like some chips? They were Draco's idea. The house elves made the chips but Draco said we had to wrap them up in newspaper. The pictures like the smell, but keep trying to wipe the grease off their noses. Hello Harry."

"Hi Luna. 'Mione, Ron, listen." Potter's voice was steady, but tired.

"How could you go to _him_ , Luna?" Granger asked. Snape almost winced; that girl's voice was like a mandrake's screech on his nerves.

Lovegood smiled. "Harry needed help. Draco had help to give. He was there to listen but Harry had to hear first. Now the wrackspurts are all cleared out and it's time to eat. Harry looks hungry."

"Harry's not eating _anything_ the _ferret_ puts in front of him," Ron was snarling.

"That's enough!" Potter yelled. Beside his bed, a pitcher of water and an empty glass exploded. Granger and Weasley's wands flew from their hands and across the ward. The lamps dimmed and flared. The many beds trembled violently for several long moments. The prickling at the edge of Severus' magic seemed to spark and flare under his skin.

When calm descended, so did a leaden weight of expectant silence. All eyes turned to gaze at the boy on the bed. Harry Potter's eyes were squeezed shut as he took three deep breaths. When he opened his eyes and looked at the two people he had for so long called his best friends, Severus _did_ wince. These weren't Lily's eyes, just as that wasn't James' face. No, these were eyes that leant themselves to legends. These eyes weren't the green of emeralds; they were Avada Kedavra.

The boy's voice was cold when he spoke. "Enough. I'm tired and my head hurts and I've fucking had _enough_ of not having any fucking say in any single fucking thing that goes on in _my fucking life_. And I am really fucking hungry." His voice broke ever so slightly at the end.

Granger's eyes filled with tears. Ron looked abashed.

"Don't bother," Potter sneered. It was a sneer worthy of any Malfoy, of any disillusioned potions master. "I don't want you to guilt me with tears, or apologise after treating me like shit, only to never stop scraping me off your fucking shoes. I don't want to have to explain myself to you, Hermione, just because you hate not knowing something. I don't want to have to share everything with you, Ron, just to validate your fucking existence."

"Harry, we're your _friends_!" wept Granger. Ron's face was flushing again, but Severus couldn't be sure whether it was with anger or shame. Perhaps the boy was simply trying to figure out the polysyllabic parts of Potter's rant.

Potter clenched his jaw. Severus imagined he could hear the teeth grinding. "If that's true, then I need you to listen to me now. I need you to do this one thing for me."

"Anything Harry!" said Granger, eagerly.

The sneer fell, Potter exhaled. "I need you to leave me be for a bit. I need you to pick up your wands and go join the feast. I need you to not need anything from me for a little while. I need you to let me eat chips with Luna and M… and Draco and Professor Snape."

Severus' eyebrow lifted almost into his hairline at this last, but it was a momentary lapse. The others in the room, with the possible exception of the Lovegood girl, looked baffled. It was time to live up to his reputation a little. He composed his countenance, let the charm fall and stepped out of the shadows. His robes billowed a little, completely by accident of course.

"Bloody hell!"

"Erudite as always, Mr. Weasley," sneered Severus.

Hermione bit her lip and looked from the potions master to the boy on the bed. "Harry, you can't just-"

But Severus had had quite enough. "I believe Mr. Potter has made his wishes clear, Miss. Granger." He took out his wand and conjured an ornate chair, upholstered in rich greens and blacks. After making himself comfortable beside the bed, he addressed the insufferable girl again. "Perhaps, instead of listing the things you think Potter "should" have done, or telling him all the things he "can't" do or "must" do… perhaps instead you could listen to what he has told you _he_ _needs_. Or must I start taking points for every moment you remain in this room expressly against the patient's wishes?"

"But-" the girl objected.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor," drawled Severus.

"Wait-" interjected the red-head.

"Another twenty points from Gryffindor." Severus pretended to examine his ink-stained fingernails.

The two Gryffindors exchanged a disgruntled look and, at last, turned to leave, picking up their wands as they stormed out.

The silence which followed was eventually broken by a snort from Draco Malfoy. "Severus, has anyone ever told you that you can be a dramatic sod when the mood takes you?" the blonde boy asked. Then he and the Lovegood girl sat in the chairs that had just been vacated, and began unwrapping the chips.


	5. Chapter 5 - Chips and a Chessboard

Harry Potter knew that he was wasting time. His plans had fallen apart at the very first hurdle, but that didn't have to mean that he couldn't still do what he had set out to. He needed to have it out with Albus Dumbledore.

But he was tired, and while Madam Pomfrey had healed most of his injuries, he was still weak from infection and malnutrition. His plans could wait until after he had eaten and rested a little. He'd just have to make sure he wasn't unconscious when the manipulative old coot returned.

The sight of Professor Snape using his long fingers to eat chips from the newspaper-wrapped bundle in his lap, brought the first honest twitch of humour that Harry Potter had felt in... well, it had been a while. It was a fleeting thing, but it was good. So were the chips, though the salt stung his recently-healed lips and Harry couldn't eat as many as he would have liked. His shrunken stomach felt painfully full after just a few mouthfuls. It was hard to stop, though. Food had been so scarce for the last few weeks that it seemed wrong to leave even a morsel uneaten. He was lifting another salt-and-vinegar coated chip with a shaking, bony hand when Snape stopped him.

"There is no need to gorge, Mr. Potter. Draco charmed the newspaper to keep the food hot and there is no hurry. Do not be scared to pause a moment."

The man's voice was always soft, but Harry thought that this was the first time he'd heard him sound gentle. Harry considered the chip in his hand and, reluctantly, put it back down. He wrapped up the remains of his meal and clutched them tightly to his body.

As they ate, Luna kept awkward silences at bay by talking about her summer hunting the crumple horned snorcack and harrumphing snarglargles. Professor Snape seemed to be biting back his sneer, but Malfoy simply looked at the girl as though she herself was a startling new breed of creature which warranted further study. Numbly, Harry wondered where the Malfoy disdain was hiding.

The blond Slytherin was licking salt from his thumb and seeming to consider his next words carefully. "Lovegood…"

The Ravenclaw interrupted him, "Luna. You can call me Luna."

Malfoy paused for a moment, considering the girl's strangeness. Finally, he spoke. "Luna… as well as the four of us, what other … creatures… can you see in this room right now?" Malfoy's eyes seemed to flicker not quite to Harry's face, but to the pillow behind and around his head.

Luna looked as though Malfoy had just given her a butterbeer-cork bracelet. "Just the alpies around you and Harry. I thought I saw a kewpid hovering about Professor Snape's hair earlier, but I might have been mistaken. Probably for the best really, I'm not sure he's quite ready for what that would mean. Muscles should be warmed before strenuous use, and the heart is no different."

Silence greeted this. Harry almost smiled again. Luna's bizarrely honest and honestly bizarre pronouncements had been part of what endeared her to him when they first met. The girl was unapologetic about her whimsy and beliefs.

Malfoy ate a couple of chips, taking his time to gather his thoughts before he continued. "Right. So, these "alpies" are still around me, too? They don't go away?"

"Maggots don't move on while meat has rot to feast on." The girl smiled as though this was not a disconcerting reply. Malfoy, however, looked rather pale at her words.

Snape's sneer could apparently no longer be contained completely. "Draco," he said, "I really don't think-"

Draco, however, interrupted the potions professor. "I used Legilimency, Severus. Love-… Luna sees them so I saw them too."

Luna smiled, "Would you like to see, Professor? It's not prying if I let you peek. I trust you not to look for what might sting me."

Snape almost choked on a chip at Luna's offer.

Harry had no idea what they were talking about, but he couldn't quite summon the energy to care about feeling lost. Besides, just watching the unlikely trio converse over chips was almost entertaining. More unlikely still was how comfortable he felt in their presence. Malfoy should have been glorying in the knowledge he evidently had of Harry's situation. Instead, he was civilly discussing beasts of Luna's magical - and possibly imaginary - menagerie. Snape should have been sneering at Harry being, yet again, at the centre of attention. But no, he was sat in a ridiculously Slytherin armchair with the sleeves of his robes rolled up so they wouldn't end up grease-marked. And Luna… well, she was always a little bit out there, wasn't she? So really she was acting as normally as she could ever be expected to. Oh god, Luna was the least weird part of the whole scenario.

And yet despite the strangeness, despite his aching body and the screaming in his head which would not stop, despite the numbness of threatening despair, Harry felt a little better than he had in a while. Perhaps it was the calming draft that Madame Pomfrey had given him before bustling off with Dumbledore and McGonagall, or perhaps it was the conversation between Malfoy and Snape he had overheard on the train. Either way, he didn't feel like they were walking on eggshells. Nor did he feel like they were about to start demanding answers. Apparently, they were simply willing to sit and keep him company and give him whatever time he needed to sort himself out.

"Thanks," Harry said, quietly. He hadn't meant to speak and realised he had interrupted Snape chastising Malfoy for Mallegency, whatever that was. All eyes had turned to him now, though, and Harry felt his colour rise.

Snape's voice was soft and low as he answered, "You are welcome, Mr. Potter." Then he held out his newspaper and said, "Chip?"

Confused, Harry answered, "I've got my own right here." He held up his wrapped food. The package was somewhat mangled as, even though there was no Dudley here to snatch and take, he had been clutching it protectively.

Snape shrugged. Harry didn't think he had ever seen such a casual gesture from the man before. "Sometimes," said the low voice, "it's good to share."

Harry realised that this might have been the first time he'd ever met Snape's eyes without defiance, anger or hate. They were warmer than he might have expected. Harry took a chip and nodded.

If there had been a moment happening, Draco broke it and Harry was glad. "Ah, the subtle science and exact art of getting a seventeen-year-old to talk about his feelings, as performed by my godfather, Professor Severus Tobias Snape." The blond Slytherin stage-whispered this to Luna who laughed brightly. The boy raised a pleased eyebrow at her reaction.

"Quiet, insolent whelp," said Snape, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Snape is Malfoy's godfather? Well that… explains a lot, actually, thought Harry. The potions professor had always gone easier on the Slytherins, but his treatment of Malfoy had seemed like favouritism. Harry wondered if he should feel irritated by this new information. Instead, the thought that Snape would treat his godson with more kindness than he did anyone else, made the man seem more human than he ever had before. A godfather should …

Just as the screaming in Harry's head threatened to get louder, Dumbledore entered the hospital wing. The old wizard's eyes surveyed the unlikely group and those eyes did not twinkle now. Dumbledore looked grave. Dumbledore looked angry. Dumbledore looked every inch the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared.

If he had not been so very numb and so desperately tired, Harry thought he might have been afraid. Instead, all he could manage was a distant sort of rage and a little bit of curiosity as to what the old wizard might have to say for himself. With what energy he had left, he began to gather his exhausted magic into a tight fist inside his chest. It was time.

"Severus, my boy," said the headmaster, "Please wait outside."

"No," said Harry, as Snape moved to stand. "I think I'd like him to stay, actually."

Professor Snape actually looked startled. His black eyes flicked suspiciously from Dumbledore to Harry but he sat again.

Harry allowed himself to enjoy the look of fury which burned briefly behind Dumbledore's eyes. Evidently the old fucker didn't like it when the pieces on the board moved contrary to his wishes. Well, Harry had had enough of being this man's pawn. He just needed his once-trusted headmaster to tell him why.

An answer to that single question, and Harry Potter thought he might just be ready to step off the chessboard completely.

Severus Snape could feel Potter's magic gathering. He didn't know why or how he could feel it, but he could. Merlin's beard, how long had the boy been wielding that amount of power?

That was just one of too many unanswered questions which filled his mind. Where were Poppy and Minerva? Surely the boy's healer and Head of House would want to be with him now? Why was the boy looking at Albus with rage and betrayal? Why was Albus looking back with cold, unfeeling calculation instead of the concern and love he professed to feel for the boy? Why had Severus not left as commanded. Why did he have one hand on his wand?

"Something you'd like to say, my boy?" asked Albus. His tone was jovial, but the lines of his face were grim.

Severus watched Potter's jaw tighten and his violent eyes grow even harder. For a moment, he thought the boy might unleash the tight coil of magic on the headmaster, but instead he took a steadying breath and relaxed ever so slightly.

"I'm not your boy," Potter spat at the headmaster. "But yes, there's something I want to ask you." A breath followed by a steady gaze. "How many times did you mess with my memories?"

Severus frowned. Dumbledore was obliviating the boy? Preposterous. And yet, in the doorway, the man Severus trusted more than any other did not deny the accusation.

Albus Dumbledore shook his head. "Would it really benefit you to know, Harry? I did what I had to so that when your time comes to face Voldemort, you would have it in you to defeat him. It takes a black and broken heart to cast a killing curse, after all."

Through his own shock and flaring anger, Severus saw the rage melt from Potter's features, only to be replaced by an expression of abject hurt and betrayal. "You said that love would be the key. That love was the power the Dark Lord would know not. Was everything a lie?"

"Harry… isn't this hurt all the more poignant because it was inflicted by those whom you love?" Dumbledore looked old and tired, but he did not look apologetic. "One day, you'll see that everything you have endured was for the greater good. Now, however, is not the time for this knowledge to be yours."

The Obliviate began to form on Albus Dumbledore's lips.

"Avada-" began Harry, although he had no wand.

"Propeportus!" said Severus. The ring on the chain around his neck grew hot and bright and then the world was spinning.


	6. Chapter 6 - Croeso i Gwallgofrwydd

"Well, that was an uncomfortable experience," drawled Draco Malfoy.

Harry Potter could only agree. Other than flying - whether by broom, beast or battered Ford Anglia - Harry pretty much detested all forms of wizarding travel.

"A proximity portkey?" enquired Luna.

"Obviously," groaned Severus, from somewhere to Harry's left.

Draco, Luna and Severus all sat up and started brushing off dust and confusion. Harry tried to do the same, but his exhausted body, still-healing ribs and aching head forbade the movement. The world began to blur around the edges and almost fell away completely until Snape placed a hand between Harry's shoulder blades to stop him falling back to the stone floor.

"Steady, Mr. Potter," muttered the professor.

As Harry was eased to sitting, he found himself surprised that the hand at his back was warm. Had he ever thought about it, he supposed he would have expected the man's skin to be cold. Another surprise in a day full of them.

"I thought portkeys didn't work inside Hogwarts?" Harry made it a question.

"My… unique circumstances have often meant that I must be able to come and go without concern for wards." Snape reached into the collar of his robes and pulled out the ring and chain. "This allows me to circumvent Hogwarts' myriad protections, either by myself or accompanied by those in very close proximity. It seemed the only option in the moment."

Malfoy was rubbing a long finger at his temple. "Fine. Great. Brilliant. We'll have to see about getting that added as a footnote to Hogwarts: A History. Until we can get around to that though, maybe instead we could learn where the hell we are and think about getting the fuck out of the troll-shit which Boy-bloody-Wonder here just landed us in!" His voice had grown louder throughout his rant and by the end he was almost shouting.

Here was the pure-blood heir Harry had known for the last six years. Harry supposed he should have realised that the man he'd heard talking on the train, the man who had brought him chips and even wrapped them in newspaper like a muggle – that was just another mad moment in an entirely mad day. Harry supposed he should be glad that not everything had gone crazy.

"Control yourself, Draco," said Snape. The man got to his feet and with a wave of his wand the lamps were lit and a fire roared to life in the hearth. Then he helped Harry to his feet and settled him into the armchair closest to the fire and the world felt insane again.

They were in a small room in what must have been some kind of old-fashioned cottage. There were comfortable armchairs, a settee, candles and several filled bookcases. Above the fireplace was a large piece of blank parchment, ornately framed. Harry had to wonder if he was missing out on some kind of pretentious artistic message – Life is a blank canvas, perhaps. Or Don't bother trying to add anything; you'll just fuck it up. No matter; it was still weird. Most of the floor was covered in a thick rug which the rest of the group had all managed to land on when they made their spinning entrance. Bloody typical.

"Control myself!?" Malfoy spluttered. He was on his feet and pacing now. "I'm not the one who just tried to cast the killing curse on Albus bloody Dumbledore!"

Harry clenched his jaw and held his tongue. It would do no good to argue and he didn't have the energy anyway. He looked into the flames and tried to gather his thoughts instead. It would be easier to do if the world would remain still and sane.

"And yet the imperative remains: control yourself," sneered Snape. "We have decisions to make and little time in which to make them."

Malfoy scowled and Harry felt sure that the tirade was about to continue, but Luna spoke before the Slytherin could. She had made herself comfortable on the settee, her legs curled up beneath her. "He would have obliviated us, too," she said. Her voice held all the worry of someone trying to decide whether to have marmalade or jam on their toast.

Malfoy considered the girl and seemed to deflate a little. Harry could understand that; Luna had a way of taking the wind out of people's sails.

"Yes, I think he would have," agreed Snape and Harry looked away from the fire and up at the man. His voice was thin with sad betrayal and his eyes were dark and lost. The expression was only there for a heartbeat before the man's usual stoic mask replaced it. Harry was glad when it was gone. It cut through the shell of anaesthetic that seemed to have encased him. Snape's sorrow kind of hurt to look at.

Another heartbeat and Snape was sat in the armchair opposite Harry. "We are in West Wales, in a safehouse I established after the last war. I am the secret keeper and I've never shared it with anyone… not even Albus. There is time to breathe, but not much."

Harry heard a sigh of relief from Malfoy at this. He wasn't sure he shared the other boy's relief; he was too numb to feel much of anything other than exhaustion.

"Potter," began Snape, "what exactly was the next step in the plan after killing the most powerful Light wizard in living memory?"

Harry looked away from Snape's eyes. Why hadn't that been the plan? Why had he even come back? Why had he let his hope - his need - for answers, steer him back to Hogwarts?

It was Luna who spoke, and this time her voice was actually sad. "You weren't aiming for Headmaster Dumbledore, were you Harry?" Harry stayed silent so Luna continued, this time looking at the others in the room. "I think… I think Harry was trying to use the killing curse on himself."

The truth was plain in Harry's drained and broken averted eyes.

"Fuck," whispered Malfoy.

"Indeed," agreed Snape.

It had been a day of strange silences for Draco Malfoy. They had been silences which had crawled under his skin and bit back his fingernails. They had been silences which felt like foil-wrapped cotton-wool between his teeth. They had been silences in which his understanding of the world and his place in it had shifted.

This silence was the heaviest. This silence was the coldest. This silence was a physical, breathless emptiness which made his lungs ache.

Before Hogwarts, Draco had known Harry Potter as the myth who vanquished Lucius Malfoy's Dark Lord. Draco hadn't really known what that meant, of course. During the period following You-Know-Who's defeat, he'd not been old enough to remember his father's rage. All he remembered was his father later instructing him to befriend the boy, as his political leverage would someday be unfathomable.

And then Harry Potter had refused to shake his hand.

And then Harry Potter had become a Gryffindor golden boy, beloved by the Light and treasured by Dumbledore.

And then Harry Potter had witnessed the Dark Lord's resurrection and refused to cower, let alone die, while Draco's venerated father had only been capable of obsequious submission.

And then it turned out that Potter's perfect world might not be all that perfect. In fact, it was so imperfect that he was ready to die rather than live in it any more.

Once, Draco Malfoy had thought he wanted to die. He'd had his godfather, his mother and a few constant friends to see him through the dark times. Who did Harry Potter have, now that his mentor was gone and his friends sent away?

"Fuck," he said.

"Indeed," his godfather agreed.

Severus Snape was beginning to wonder just how in the name of Voldemort's veiny viper he had ever made it as a spy. Apparently, his understanding was flawed, his assumptions were erroneous and his assurances were tenuous. At this point, all he could say for sure about Harry Potter was that the boy had green eyes, black hair and a surprising amount of power, coiled like a snake ready to strike.

And, he supposed, now he knew that Potter had been beaten, betrayed and abused in the most horrible ways.

That Hallowe'en in Godric's Hollow, when he had held his once best and only friend in his arms as her lifeless body grew increasingly cold, Severus Snape had wanted to die. His oath to protect Lily's son and his debt to Albus Dumbledore had saved him.

What did Potter have? The fate of the wizarding world on his shoulders, bad friends and a healing rectal perforation.

Severus would not have wished such a life even on James and his favourite mutts.

He heard Draco's muttered "Fuck" through his own sorrow.

"Indeed," he could only agree.

It was a pretty room, despite the alpie mists and that possible peripheral kewpid. The flames of the fire were full of fausterlings, all trying to barter and bargain with the ghastlies which swirled in the ashes and dust kicked up by fire and life.

Luna Lovegood could hear the sadness in Harry. His bones sounded hollow and his heart had only hummed the softest of tunes all night. Usually, his spirit had song. She was glad she was here to help it to remember how not to hurt.

Draco Malfoy was a silver star eclipsing deep shadows. His sun had been one of winter once; cold, bright, blinding – an irritant to all those who faced him. Unable to warm or thaw. Try to look and love but be left burned by ice.

And Professor Snape was an ocean. Calm, barely-rippling surface but inexorable dragging currents deep beneath. Ready to claim and swallow and stop breath. His heart was the same. Calm belying storm. Cool concealing flame.

"Fuck," said Draco. It was good that he knew there was hurt.

"Indeed," said Professor Snape. Always nice to see him being agreeable.

"Somebody's at the door," said Luna, pointing at the blank parchment above the fireplace, which had suddenly filled with large, rather untidy handwriting.

 _Shw mae, Sev?_

 _Give us the password so I can turn off this bloody alarm._

 _It's fuckin loud._

 _P.S. I'm gonna give you a cwtch, mate. It's been yonks. Pretend to like it._


	7. Chapter 7 – The Sharp of Fangs

"Interesting doorbell you have there, professor," said Harry with practiced levity; it seemed like a good time to draw attention away from the erumpent in the room. "But I thought you said nobody knows about this place."

Snape's sneer was oddly comforting in its familiarity. "It _is_ a secret, Mr. Potter. However, I had assumed that should I ever be in a situation which called for me to make use of this particular bolt-hole, I would be in need of assistance which was unavailable to me from anywhere else. It was not necessary to share the location of this cottage, but I had to at least create an alarm which would inform a contact that the hippogriff shit had hit the proverbial fan, so to speak. The "doorbell," he gestured to the canvas on the wall, "is linked to a contact who is several miles from here - though he does not know how close he is. If I give him a password, the front door of his house will connect with the door to this cottage. Even if he had magic, he would not be able to leave until I gave my leave, nor will he be able to return again until I re-activate the spell."

Malfoy was beginning to look as tired as Harry felt. "Even if… You're telling us that you might be about to entrust our safety to a squib? Have you gone mad? Have _I_ gone mad!?"

Harry watched the potions master carefully. The man was staring at the framed parchment with his jaw clenched and his eyes tight. He had the look of a man who had had a hard day to top-off a hard life. It was the look of a poker player who had bet high, held his cards close to his chest and now had to show his hand. There were no more plays to be made and the dealer had palmed the aces. Harry actually saw the moment that Severus Snape decided to lay his cards on the table. The man looked at Harry as he responded to Malfoy. "My contact isn't a squib; he is a muggle, and now that Albus Dumbledore has proven himself false, he is perhaps at the top of the list of those I deign to trust. As even _you_ can imagine, Potter, that list is short."

Malfoy sputtered, "A _muggle_!?"

Harry sighed and frowned into the fire for a long time. Somewhere in the back of his tired mind, a closeted voice wondered if Snape included _him_ anywhere on that list. But no. Even if it was possible to trust someone you disdained - hated even - this latest episode in the shit-show which was Harry's life had probably put paid to that. This was all Harry's fault, after all. He should have let Snape leave the infirmary when Dumbledore asked him to; he should have feigned old hate and told Malfoy to fuck off along with Ron and Hermione; he should have told Luna that he was _sure_ he'd seen a crumple-horned snorcack wandering around the great hall.

A bubble seemed to be expanding in his chest.

He should never have come back to Hogwarts. He should have put an end to it all far away from anyone else. Instead, he'd been selfish - Snape would probably call it arrogance - and decided he _deserved_ answers. He had wanted to look into Dumbledore's eyes and see if that twinkle held any truth at all. He wanted witnesses to see that he went out with a bang and not a whimper. And he'd ended up dragging another three lives into the shit. On top of that, Snape wanted to involve another person - a wandless, defenceless muggle, no less.

The bubble grew bigger. Harry could feel it swelling behind his lungs, making it hard to breathe. It seemed like a vacuum around his heart. Squeezing.

"Stop, Harry. Hush those voices. They lie." Luna's voice was soft and her thumb was cool as she stroked a tear from his cheek. He hadn't realised he was crying. He hadn't cried since… no, best not think about that quite yet.

Harry took a shaky breath, removed his glasses and brushed an oversized sleeve over his eyes. When his vision was clear again, he saw that Luna was knelt in front of him. Behind her, Malfoy was looking anywhere but at him and Snape was frowning - probably irritated at what he'd see as the Golden Boy's pathetic self-pity. "Sorry," he muttered.

"What for?" asked Luna, for all the world sounding genuinely puzzled and politely curious.

"I'm sorry I've dragged you into my shit," Harry said honestly. He looked back to the fire; it was easier than meeting any of their eyes. "You tried to help and this is what you get: a bawling freak and the wrath of the greatest wizard of the age. I'm sorry I came back. It was selfish, and I'm sorry for that, too. I'm sorry for a lot of things."

Luna took one of Harry's hands in her own and squeezed it. "I though the wrackspurts were all gone, but your brain still seems a bit fuzzy. They're making you think you have to apologise for being sad and for Headmaster Dumbledore's actions."

Harry sighed. Luna didn't understand. None of this would have happened if he'd stayed away.

"Mr. Potter," said Snape, his voice full of impatience. "You seem - once again - to be suffering under the delusion that the entire wizarding world spins upon the axis of your every action. Might I remind you that it was, in fact, I who brought us here?"

A moment ago, the man's face had seemed about to open. Harry had thought they were on the cusp of some kind of understanding. Now, however, the old enmity seemed to have fallen back into the lines of the man's face. Harry shook his head. "You wouldn't have if I hadn't-"

"Hadn't what, Mr. Potter? Hadn't made us aware that Albus Dumbledore had lost his wits?" Harry could see the man settling into the familiar stride of his customary loathing. Snape stood and began to pace as he continued. "If ignorance is such bliss, then should we all subject ourselves to Obliviation, after all? Would you come with us or is it only the Chosen One who deserves to have his mind free from violation?"

Snape was towering over him now. Harry wanted to stand and fight back. He wanted to kick and scream and tell the bastard just how un- _fucking_ -fair he was being. He wanted to spit in the git's face and leave his bitter meanness far behind him. But the bubble was a vice now and it was all Harry could do to remember how to breathe. He felt his body cringe and shrink away from the angry words, the looming body, the feeling of being weak, bad, ( _violated - that's what he said - that's what you are - violated - violated - violated_ ) and somehow unclean. He closed his eyes and turned his head, his body acting instinctively to take the blow which it expected to come.

It was through a numbing fog of resigned expectation that he heard Draco Malfoy address the potions master with something like outrage in his voice. "For Salazar's sake, Severus, _stop it_! Look at him!"

But by then, the bubble, the vacuum, the vice had had him in its grip for too long. His lungs hurt, lights prickled painfully behind his eyelids, and he was grateful for the comfort of lost consciousness.

Draco Malfoy watched Lovegood cover Potter with a blanket and then stroke an unkempt length of fringe back from the boy's thin face. Pomfrey had cast a few cleansing charms on him, but Harry still needed a proper bath and clean clothes.

"It's best we let him rest," whispered the girl, as she got to her feet.

Draco nodded before turning to scowl at his godfather. He loved and trusted the man more than anyone else in the world, but there were times when he felt like shaking the bloody git. "What the bloody hell was that?" His voice was more of a hiss than a whisper.

The prickly bastard had the decency to look slightly ashamed. His tone, however, was unapologetic. "The boy needed a reminder that his is not the only life upheaved by Albus' betrayal."

"No," disagreed Draco, "I think it's _you_ who needs a reminder. I asked you to _help_ a boy who has been beaten, half-starved and, as you so-very-fucking-gently reminded him, violated."

Snape's pale skin turned chalky at that, and Draco groaned. Apparently, it was accidental salt that Severus had just rubbed into Harry's wounds. "Merlin's breath, Severus. For a man who throws out the word "dunderhead" more often than the rest of us blink, this particular faux pas was rather monumental."

Snape fell into his seat and ran his hands back through his hair. It was an unusual expression of unease from the man, but Draco's disappointment was too sharp to be dulled or softened yet. "There's still blood on his clothes and he looked about ready to retch every time he shifted in his seat! Lovegood tells us he meant to fucking off himself and as far as I can tell, you might think the world better off if he'd managed it! If that was you helping, then it was badly bloody done."

Draco saw that barb hit home and his godfather seemed to forget his momentary contrition. "A few hours ago, it seemed like you'd willingly tie a noose for him yourself," scowled the potions master.

Well, that stung. His godfather must have realised as much as the sneer fell somewhat.

Draco swallowed back his hurt. "Yes, well… a few hours ago you told me I wasn't quite the bastard my father wants me to be. I chose to believe you."

Severus finally seemed to sag a little. After several long moments he finally nodded tersely. "I…" He faltered, gathered himself, and tried again. "I am unused to…" Another false start. Another steadying breath. "I find myself… troubled by recent events."

Draco shook his head and crossed his arms. "Not good enough," he said.

Severus seemed to realise that Draco was not going to let him off the hook easily and the boy watched his godfather struggle to find his words. When Severus finally did speak, his voice was quiet and hesitating. "I do not enjoy being wrong, Draco."

For a long moment, Draco thought the man might need more prompting, but then the weary man continued on his own. "My mistakes have, in the past, led to my having more than a man's fair share of sins for which to atone. Today I have discovered myself to have been wrong about many things, and in putting my faith in Albus Dumbledore, I may have more sins still than any one soul should ever bear. It is knowledge which I am finding… difficult to accept. I lashed out. Will you accept my apology?"

Draco blinked. That was more honesty than he had been expecting. He nodded and let his arms fall to his sides before collapsing back onto the couch beside Luna Lovegood.

The girl had watched the entire exchange with her usual almost-detachment, but now seemed to be almost smiling. "It's good that you're ready to say the things that usually hide underneath your words," she whispered. "It's a very Slytherin habit, that. Harry won't hear the things you mean, only what you say and what he thinks you think of him. The man can talk to snakes but slithery softness slips away from him. Only the hurt of fangs catches and sticks."

Draco looked from the girl to his godfather and then back again. "Are you addressing me or Severus?" he asked.

The girl was definitely smiling now. "Yes," was her only answer.

Draco only had it in him to stare blankly at her for a few seconds. She was a puzzle, this one. Talking about talking plainly in the most befuddling fashion. It was either irony or madness, but he was frankly too exhausted for either so he turned to his godfather instead. "What now?" he asked.

Severus Snape pointed his wand at the parchment on the wall.

Alarm deactivation password: 10NAWR30

I'll key you into the cottage in the morning.

Bring chest and food. Contact nobody.

S

"Now, Draco, we try to get some rest," said Severus. "Tomorrow is going to be a trying day, I suspect."

Draco frowned. "Can we really afford to delay?" he asked. "Dumbledore probably isn't stroking his beard and sucking on sherbet lemons right now, Severus. Don't you think we should be coming up with some kind of a plan?"

"A plan is only as strong as the mind that makes it, Draco, and tonight my mind is weary." Severus Snape sighed, stood and cast _Levicorpus_ on the unconscious Harry Potter. Before he left the room with the Gryffindor, he looked steadily at Draco and Lovegood. "I shall transfigure an extra bed in the guest room, presently. Get some rest. Contact nobody, stay inside and cast no magic."

With that, Severus left. Draco felt something close to panic clawing at his throat until a much softer grip suddenly held his arm. He turned and met the gentle eyes of the girl beside him.

"Shall I make some tea?" she asked him. "Or shall I see if there are any fimafengs about which might know where Professor Snape hides his whiskey?"

After the trials of the day, Draco was shocked by the very small but genuine laugh that escaped him at that. "Perhaps you're a clever Ravenclaw after all, Lovegood," he said, and surprised himself again by patting her hand.

The girl smiled, not the ubiquitous dreamy tilt of her lips, but an almost mischievous grin which showed a few even-white teeth and added a glimmer to her eyes. "Yes I am," she agreed. "And you can call me Luna."

Severus Snape pulled back the blankets of the master bed and gently lowered the boy onto it. In sleep, Harry Potter's face was neither unlined nor untroubled. At just sixteen, there were dark shadows under his eyes and even a few fine lines at their corners. There was a more definite crease between his dark eyebrows and a hardness to the line of the boy's jaw.

 _A boy no longer,_ the potions master thought, as he pulled the blankets over the thin body. The young man's hands were still clasped around a mangled bundle of newspaper-wrapped chips. Even unconscious he clung to the food, and Severus could not bring himself to banish the package. Instead, he gently uncurled Potter's fingers and placed the leftovers on the simple bedside table. The young man whimpered at the loss.

"Hush," muttered Severus, and Potter seemed to relax somewhat. It seemed the lad was more amenable to instruction when he was unconscious.

 _You're being a git, Sev,_ said the voice of an old friend in the corner of his mind.

Severus Snape new there was little reason in arguing with a memory, so he did not. Instead, he settled into the comfortable chair beside the bed, emptied his mind, and hoped sleep would not be long in coming.

The hope, as so many of his hopes had ever been, was in vain.


	8. Chapter 8 - An Accord

Harry awoke in the pale light of almost-dawn, to see his stern potions professor slumped and sleeping in an armchair. The man's chin had fallen to rest on his chest and a veil of black hair obscured his face, but did not mute the small snores that puffed through his oft-broken nose.

Severus Snape - feared potions master of Hogwarts; bane of Gryffindors; demon of detentions - was _snoring_ not three feet away from Harry Potter's bedside. For an insane moment, Harry thought he was going to laugh. To quell the rising hysterics, he looked away from his apparent sentinel and surveyed the room he was in.

It was brighter that he would have expected, even in the sallow light of a grey September dawn. It was all cream walls and rich wood, soft blankets and comfy cushions. It was traditional and cosy and Harry was surprised by the little glow in his gut. Right here, right now, he felt almost safe.

He also felt like he needed to use the bathroom. Was he healed enough to do so? He wiggled tentatively where he lay. He didn't feel feverish anymore. His ribs and wrist and arse still ached, but not nearly as savagely as they had just the day before. Physically, he felt better, though he was still weak and there was still a tightness in his chest.

Mentally, he felt ( _numb-cold-empty-hollow-miserable_ ) very little, so long as he didn't think about it too hard, so long as he ignored the screaming in his head. He didn't think he'd be allowed to do so for very much longer. Best make the most of the opportunity.

Thinking he felt strong enough to seek out the toilet, Harry sat up and leaned back against the headboard for a moment, waiting for the world to stop moving. When the spinning ceased, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. After another wave of dizziness crested and finally ebbed, Harry stood.

And immediately fell back onto the bed as his legs gave way and his vision darkened at the corners. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and groaned, trying to breathe through the nausea which threatened to overcome him completely.

"Drink, Mr. Potter," said the unmistakable voice of Severus Snape, and then the glass rim of a potions vial was being pressed to his lips.

Harry grasped the bottle and drank. Almost instantly, he felt a wave of calm energy sweep through him. His pulse steadied and his nerve endings seemed to have been caressed by a steadying balm. The knot in his chest eased just a little, too.

Harry opened his eyes to see the face of Severus Snape only inches away. The man's face was its usual mask, but there seemed to be a glimmer of concern in his black eyes.

"You snore," said Harry. He blinked, surprised by the words; he hadn't meant to speak at all.

Snape arched an eyebrow and Harry thought for a second that the man looked amused. But no, surely not. Nonetheless, his tone was not as acerbic as usual when he spoke. "And you would be remarkably easy to poison," he said. "Do you always drink what's put before you without thought or enquiry?"

Harry might have rolled his eyes if he hadn't thought doing so might just make him dizzy all over again. "Not usually," he said. He did not add that in recent memory, he had found himself caring very little about "constant vigilance" for the sake of his safety.

Snape took the vial back and stowed it in one of his many pockets. After a long look in which Harry wondered whether Snape had understood the unspoken implication, the professor stood and held a hand out to Harry. "Allow me to be of assistance, Mr. Potter."

Through the numbness, Harry felt a tingle of surprise at the offered hand. He blinked away the last lingering fog of sleep and tried to recall the events of the previous night. Hadn't Snape gone back to being a git? Hadn't they argued about something? Why was he being all… _nice_?

Snape sighed when Harry didn't take his hand. The older man looked about the bedroom, as though he might find words hidden amongst the country-cosy décor.

"Last night," the man began, "I was… hasty in my speech, Mr Potter. My godson has informed me that I was less than… helpful. I would like to… formally apologise for the manner in which I spoke. If we are to be allies in this situation, I shall endeavour to communicate in a fashion more befitting such an accord."

Harry blinked up rather owlishly at Snape. Again, he felt the strange urge to laugh. "Wow," he said, at last. "That was really difficult for you, wasn't it?"

Snape looked like he was trying not to scowl and Harry felt a little more of the numbness crack. He reached out and took the ink-stained fingers of the offered hand. Once Snape had carefully helped him to his feet, Harry offered a tentative smile. Instead of dropping the man's hand, he adjusted his grip and shook it. "Yesterday was a long day for all of us," he said to the older man. "We were all tired and old habits die hard. But I want you to know that I appreciate everything you've done, not just getting us out of there yesterday, but all the stuff before that, too."

Snape looked from Harry's face down to their clasped hands, and a Harry saw a glimmer of something in the man's eyes. Was that confusion? Surprise? Perhaps even fear? Harry had no time to figure it out as the look was quickly gone. After squeezing his hand firmly in a single handshake, Snape offered Harry a steadying arm and led him from the room.

They drank instant black coffee and ate soup for breakfast. Snape said there were supplies on the way, but Harry really couldn't find a bad thing to say about the meal. He was just glad for the hot meal and almost imagined that he could feel what vitamins the canned broth had to offer, being absorbed into his every cell.

Low wooden beams, a fireplace and a rickety, oak dining table made the kitchen another cosy room in the old-fashioned cottage. The window over the sink overlooked a garden which seemed more like an unkempt meadow. It was all rather picturesque.

When the breakfast was eaten, the dishes cleared and the coffee-pot refilled, Harry looked around the table at his unusual companions. All three were looking back at him with expectant trepidation and he sighed. This conversation was overdue and he had to be the one to start it.

After a last hot sip of coffee, Harry began. "Professor Snape, do you have a pensieve here?"

Snape nodded, "They are rare, but this safe-house is equipped with many things I thought I might need if the worst were to happen."

Malfoy frowned at his godfather, "You mean… this is where you thought you'd come to die?"

Snape nodded and took a nonchalant sip of his coffee. "Indeed," he said. Harry wondered if the professor was stopping himself from criticising his godson for stating the obvious.

Malfoy frowned more deeply, but said nothing, so Harry continued. "I know you need to know what's happened to me… but I'm not sure I can talk about it yet. Even if I can, I doubt I'll say it right and I'll probably forget something important." He looked at Malfoy and Snape in turn before carrying on. "I suppose the two of you could use Legilimency on me, but Luna can't and I don't really want it all dragged through my brain in that way anyway."

Snape caught his eye and Harry motioned for the man to say his piece. "It is true, Mr. Potter, that the collection of pensieve memories is less wearing on the subject than Legilimency, but you would still have to engage with the memories somewhat."

Harry nodded, "Yeah, I thought as much. But it would just be the once and besides… it would be a record, too." Harry looked at the man and thought he saw understanding there. "That's why you have a pensieve here in the first place, right? To go on the record with your own, personal truth?"

Snape nodded. With a flourish of his wand, the door to the cupboard under the kitchen sink burst open, and a large, marble bowl flew from within to land on the kitchen table. Another flick and some empty vials followed.

Draco smirked slightly. "You keep a pensieve – a rare and valuable magical artefact – under your kitchen sink?"

"Evidently," sneered Snape.

"My father uses his as a fruit bowl," chimed Luna. In the same light tone, she said, "Are you sure you wish us to see these memories, Harry? You don't have to share what you're not comfortable giving."

Harry smiled slightly. He so often forgot how much he liked Luna. She was odd and honest and so genuinely nice that some people mistook her for a fool. Harry wondered if he should feel bad that he was glad she was there with him. "Thanks, Luna. I don't want you to feel like you have to watch… it won't be pleasant. But I think it's important to know the truth. I've had the truth kept from me for too long. If you're in this, I won't keep it from you."

Harry hesitated and looked around the table. He settled on Snape's eyes. "But you really should decide if you _do_ want this. I remember what you said last night, professor, but I'm not saying that you need to run back to Dumbledore with your wand between your legs. You could leave, go abroad, stay out of the shit-storm altogether."

Snape shook his head. "If there is truth to be had, I find myself coveting it. I would know what lies I've worked to perpetuate, Potter."

Luna smiled. "I'm already part of your army, Harry. Besides, you were the first person to ever say we were friends. Staying seems like a friendly thing to do."

A warm little glow crept through the cracks in the numbness and Harry smiled at the girl. He reached out across the table and squeezed her hand quickly. "Cheers, Luna," he said, his voice a bit hoarse.

Draco's gaze was level. "I've had doubts about the Malfoy allegiance since second year, but I think I made my actual decision this summer," he said, quietly. "You overheard me and Severus on the train, correct?" Harry held his eyes and nodded. "Then you know that I had decided against taking the mark. What you don't know – what I don't think I really knew until yesterday – is that I never intended to grovel to Dumbledore or to ask his precious Order for asylum. I believe I intended to come to you, Harry."

Harry's eyebrows shot up at that. Across the table, he saw Snape's do the same. However, Malfoy's gaze never wavered and he held out his hand.

Harry remembered a smaller hand extended in much the same way in the cabin of a train. It had taken him five years, but at last Harry reached out and shook it. "Thank you, Draco,"

Harry turned to Snape. "So, what do I do? How do I think my thoughts into a jar?"

The potions professor raised his wand and pointed it at Harry's head. "Concentrate on what you need to show us. I will siphon the thoughts into the vial for you; it will be more expedient than teaching you the charm and the process for now."

Harry nodded, squeezed his eyes shut, and focused on thinking about all the things he really didn't want to think about. It only took minutes, but by the end of the process, Harry could feel the pain of panic in his chest again and the sting of tears threatening to fall.

"It is done," said Snape's voice, more gently than Harry would ever have believed him capable.

Harry nodded. "Okay. Right. Well. While you're watching, I think I'll go and have a shower." What he wanted was a bath. He wanted to sink into hot water and scrub his skin with wire wool to get the stink of the memories off him. But a shower would be quicker and no doubt they'd have questions.

Snape finished pouring the memories into the pensieve and looked up, his eyes assessing. "I have to ask, Mr. Potter…"

Harry held up his hand. "I'll be okay. Give me a shout when you're done if it makes you feel better. I just want a good scrub."

He walked from the room, not waiting for Snape to agree.


	9. Chapter 9 - In the Pensieve

**Chapter 9 – In the Pensieve**

 **A/N – I had to post this again as my asterixes disappeared! Is that an FF thing? I hadn;t noticed if they vanished in other chapters...**

 **This is a short one, but it needs to be. The tense will be back to normal next chapter, but I was aiming for a sort of vivid immediacy here. I'd love to know if you think it works.**

 **TRIGGERS. Lots of them. Specifically for child abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and starvation. You've been warned. Please don't flame me! x**

Green light. A woman screaming. Such pain as death is made of in the eyes of a crying child. Severus Snape does not cover his ears to the sound of Lily's last moment. He owes it to her to listen.

*x*x*

A cupboard. _The_ cupboard. He's seen it before in Harry's mind, but it had been a blur. Now, Severus watches as a little boy dressed in rags weeps silently in the darkness. He holds his stomach as though in pain. His arms are little more than bone. His hair is a matted mess. His lips are chapped and bloodied. He urinates into a stinking cat litter tray in the corner of his cell.

An opening door. A whale of a man grabbing and pulling. The sound of a zipper and begging.

A fog falls and the memory hides behind it.

*x*x*

The boy is older, but not much bigger. His eyes are squeezed shut and his hand is pressed against the cupboard's locks. He grinds his teeth and does not see the light which glows from his palm as all the locks release at once. He opens his eyes and grins brightly. Severus hurts to see such joy at an opened cage. Surely it can't last. The boy steals into the kitchen and carefully opens the cupboard. His movements are quick and practiced. He's done this before.

A handful of nuts, not enough to notice. A slice of dry bread. A corner of cheese and a wet, wilting carrot from the back of the 'fridge.

A loud crack. The little boy spins, dropping the food, to stare up at an old man with a long beard. Albus Dumbledore looks resigned as he holds out his wand.

" _Obliv_ …"

A fog falls and the memory hides behind it.

*x*x*

The letters.

Harry Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

No. 4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The boy's eyes light up. Severus can almost hear him hoping that somebody who knows about his cupboard will come and save him from it. Because _somebody knows._

Then a giant comes, bringing cake and magic.

*x*x*

Fog.

There are bars on his windows. There are locks on the door. A catflap compliments the kitty-litter tray in the corner. The boy on the bed is thin and the light in his eyes is dull. There are bruises. So many bruises. The rag of his t-shirt is stained. Severus can see blood and what he suspects is semen.

Fog.

The clothes are different, but the boy hasn't moved.

A flying Ford Anglia sets him free. Red-heads rescue him and report back to mother.

Nothing more is said on the matter.

The boy breaks just a little more.

*x*x*

The whispers in the walls.

Tom Marvolo Riddle. The snake. The hat. The sword.

Pain and phoenix tears. Severus sees the disappointment in the boy's eyes when he realises the bird won't just let him die.

*x*x*

The boy has a godfather. For a bright, shining moment, he thinks there will be no more beatings, no more starving, no more mornings where his body hurts strangely and he can't remember anything.

Severus Snape watches himself snuff out the brief light in the boy's eyes.

The threat of a serial killer only keeps his uncle at bay for a week before a fog falls and the memory hides behind it.

*x*x*

Cedric.

The cauldron. The horror born of blood.

He sees his mum and dad and the longing in his eyes tells Severus just how much Harry wishes to join them.

The gleam in Dumbledore's eyes when Harry tells him "He's back."

*x*x*

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

*x*x*

 _Dear Padfoot,_

 _I think something is wrong with me. My head hurts and my magic is acting up. I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting stuff, too._

 _What happened in the DofM? I thought I saw you fall into that veil thing, but then things get foggy and you're okay._

 _I think I'm going mad._

 _I know I'm meant to stay here, Sirius, but what're rules to a Marauder, eh?_

 _Please. Come and get me._

 _Harry_

Nobody comes to get him. Hedwig never comes back.

*x*x*

Fog

The whale-like uncle

Fog

shares his nephew

Fog

with a whale-like cousin.

Fog

*x*x*

The boy reads every book in his trunk three times over.

He practises clearing his mind.

*x*x*

His occlumency is strong now, so his mind is protected when they drug him the last time. But his body is not. Snape sees the awareness in Potter's eyes as the uncle and cousin share him. Snape sees them break Potter's wand and rape him with the broken ends.

He sees Harry Potter's green eyes begin to glow until suddenly they are twin suns and the men above him are burning, screaming, dying, dead.

Then it is Harry who is screaming as he looks in horror at the ash around him. He screams until his voice and lungs give out and when he takes a breath to start again, he inhales some of a cloud of dust which used to be his uncle. Severus watches the boy's eyes go wide as he realises that he is choking on his uncle for the last (but sadly not the first) time. He retches and vomits onto the bed, onto the ashes, before finally passing out cold.

*x*x*

The memories fade. It is over.


	10. Chapter 10 – Choosing the Path

Severus Snape did not pause to check what affect the memories had had on Draco and Luna Lovegood; his first priority was to seek out Potter. Why the fuck had he let him go off by himself? Severus hurried from the kitchen and through the hallway, stopping outside the bathroom.

The stillicide patter of the weak shower sounded through the door, but it was not loud enough to mask the shuddering sobs. Severus sighed with relief. Weeping was a welcome alternative to dead silence. He knocked on the door. "Potter?" he called.

There was no reply, though the sobbing became more muffled.

Severus' brows drew together. Perhaps the boy simply wanted to be alone in his grief, but what if he'd done something to himself in there? What if he was hurt? Severus did not wish to make the boy uncomfortable – after everything he'd just seen, the man knew that Potter could not welcome being intruded upon while in a state of undress – but he also knew that leaving the boy alone in the first place might have been a fatal mistake. All he could do was give the boy some forewarning.

"Potter," he said, "I am coming in. Cover yourself if you wish, but I must see to your safety before I consider your modesty. Do not be afraid."

He hesitated just one more moment, expecting an answer, or even an outraged refusal. When nothing came, his worry increased and he pushed open the door.

Through the cloying heat of thick steam, Severus saw him. The boy was sat in the tub under the spray of the shower; his thin, naked legs hugged to his chest by even thinner arms. His hair was dripping and his skin was pink from the hot water. His eyes were red with tears and his lips were a hard, wet line of anguish. There was rage and disgust and fear in those eyes as they looked up to meet Severus' own. But there was also an agonised plea. Harry Potter's eyes begged him. They begged him to take away the pain, to make it all better, to make it all stop.

Severus swallowed hard and pulled the chord which cut off the power supply to the shower. Without the sound of the water, the boy's sobs were louder and they echoed off the tiles. Moving towards the boy in the same way he might approach an injured animal, Snape took a towel, opened it, and reached his arms around the shaking, sobbing, naked young man in the tub, folding him into both towel and embrace.

Severus expected him to flinch or push him away. However, as Snape's arms wrapped around him, Harry let go of his legs and reached out to cling to his teacher as fiercely as he had clung to his chips. He clutched at Severus like he meant to keep hold, like he needed the contact just as much as he had needed to fill his stomach after being starved.

There were more things to be starved of than just calories, the potions master supposed as he gently rocked to boy, not hushing his cries or placating his pain. Harry Potter had earned the right to every fucking tear.

Severus Snape let Harry Potter cry, and held him gently through every heart-shattering sob.

x*x*x

The kitchen smelled like coffee and the sound of summer birdsong drifted in through the window above the sink. Draco Malfoy was staring down at the silver surface of the pensieve. Its surface was so calm, so untroubled, so completely juxtaposed to the memories within. He only realised his hands were shaking when Luna Lovegood pressed her own unsteady but reassuringly-cool fingers atop his.

Raising his eyes to meet hers, Draco saw that the girl's face was not its usual picture of serenity. There was no half smile and her brows weren't raised in their usual expression of whimsical eccentricity. Instead, her chin was trembling and tears cascaded over her pale cheeks. The expression touched something in Draco's chest. That a girl who so often seemed to be positivity personified, a walking silver lining, should witness such debasement… it seemed a desecration. For an unreasonable and unexpected heartbeat, Draco felt all his past hatred of Harry Potter flood back, but it fled as quickly as it came, leaving him feeling drained and disgusted.

"There's so much hurt to help," whispered Luna.

Draco nodded, swallowing back nausea. "I think I used up my best idea on the chips. This is bigger than I expected."

Seeing Draco's uncertainty seemed to fortify Luna somewhat. She squeezed his hands but did not smile. "The chips were a good hello. A little bit of good after so much bad."

 _A little bit of good after so much bad._ Draco sighed. He didn't know whether the "bad" Luna was talking about was Potter's – no, Harry's – history with his family, or the animosity which had festered between himself and the Gryffindor since they were eleven. It was really rather sickening to think that the same description which fit the vileness in the pensieve, could be used for Draco.

Luna lifted one of her hands from his and Draco felt a distant sorrow at the loss of comfort until the cool fingers brushed the side of his cheek and a thumb swept through a tear under his eye. He hadn't realised he was crying. He could count on one hand the people in front of whom he'd ever shed genuine tears, and was surprised that he couldn't quite summon the capacity to care. Deep in his gut, a clenched, slick fist of some vaguely familiar emotion was tightening painfully. It made him want to be sick; to retch it up in an oily, black torrent.

Guilt.

He felt guilty.

Once, a pale blond boy had stood in front of his pale blond father and told him he was sorry for breaking an expensive artefact that he'd not been meant to touch.

"'Sorry'?" Lucius Malfoy had sneered, laying his cane over an elegantly-crossed knee. "I don't want your _guilt_ , Draco Abraxas." His father always neglected the "Malfoy" when scolding his son, withholding what was important from one who was undeserving.

Young Draco had shuffled from foot-to-foot, knowing it was best to remain silent when he wasn't certain what words to speak.

"Guilt," said Lucius Malfoy, "is no more than weak, self-pitying regret for ill-considered action. I want none of it."

The little blond boy did not how to say sorry for being sorry. And he didn't know how to stop being it, either. "What do you-?" The boy paused. _Don't ask questions. Demand answers._ "Tell me what you wish of me, Father." The smallest nod of approval from his father made Draco's chest bleed with elation.

"I want your obedience. You will be punished and you will learn from this how to better honour what you represent."

"Draco?" Luna's sweet voice cut through the bitterness of Draco's memories. "A snake can shed its skin to shine."

He raised his eyes to meet hers again. "But it'll still be a snake underneath," he said, his voice hoarse, dimly recognising that Luna's incongruity was beginning to make an odd sort of sense to him sometimes.

Luna almost smiled but could not seem to manage it. "Misunderstood creatures," she said, and brushed her thumb under his eye again.

Draco took a breath and sloughed off another layer of his upbringing. "Harry must have been so glad to get away to Hogwarts. And as soon as he got away from those beasts, I was there to spoil it."

Luna nodded. "Yes," she agreed.

Well, Draco supposed he would take kind eyes if there were no pretty lies to be had. "How do I make this right, Luna?"

At last, Luna managed a small, soft smile.

x*x*x

The pillows which propped Harry up were soft, and several comfortable blankets were cocooned around him.

Snape had wrapped him in the towel and carried him back to bed. The man hadn't questioned him; he had simply let Harry cling to him until he had sobbed his eyes raw and then settled himself into the seat beside the bed.

Harry felt cleaner. It wasn't just the shower; he hadn't been able to manage much more than a quick sudsing before the balloon of panic and horror in his chest had swelled again. It was almost as though the tears had washed away some of the filth inside him. His eyes were sore now, but it was a cleaner pain. His throat and chest ached from the deep, shuddering sobs, but every breath seemed just a little cooler, a little easier. And Snape had held him through the worst of it. That had been… different. If he wasn't used to crying, he sure as hell wasn't used to having someone there to hug him through the tears. Harry wouldn't have expected the man to have it in him. Not that Harry had given him much choice. As soon as Snape had wrapped the towel around him, Harry had pretty much latched onto him like a naked, bawling limpet. Snape had been nice about it, but it couldn't have done much to improve his view of "Potter's pathetic brat."

Harry sighed. Some of the clean feeling was already deflating under the pin-pricks of embarrassment and shame. "Sorry," Harry muttered.

Snape tilted his head. "You are apologising for crying?"

Harry half shrugged and nodded, then pulled the blankets more tightly around him. He wasn't sure where his clothes were and he felt exposed and weak. Would Snape mind if he transfigured one of the cushions into some pyjamas? Before he could ask, Snape seemed to understand his discomfort. The man waved his wand at the wardrobe and silently summoned a nightshirt. It was a bit old fashioned, but the white brushed-cotton was soft and smelled like something clean and masculine. Harry shrugged into it. The sleeves were far too long and the neck slipped wide, exposing his too-bony shoulder, but Harry was used to oversized clothes. This was an improvement to the tent of a T-shirt he'd been wearing. "Thank you," he said. "Um, should we go back to the kitchen?"

Snape didn't make any move to leave. "Are you ready?"

Harry blushed. He wasn't, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't be changing any time soon. "You go ahead. I could do with a second, but I'll be right out."

The potions master shook his head. "I shall not leave you. It was remiss of me to do so this morning, given Miss. Lovegood's deduction last night." Snape truly did sound regretful.

Harry managed to shake his head and mutter, "I didn't try to do anything to myself in the shower."

"Nonetheless, I'm afraid you shall have to resign yourself to my company for the time being. Take a moment to collect yourself. I shall not intrude." Snape retrieved a book from the nightstand and settled to reading while Harry fell to his thoughts.

Harry didn't even have it in him to sigh. In truth, he wasn't sure that he was upset. Perhaps he didn't want to be alone after all.

The bedroom window overlooked more of the same pretty but untamed wilderness that Harry had seen from the kitchen. Late butterflies and fat bumblebees drifted by, unconcerned by anything. It was hard not to envy them. It was hard not to hate them.

When he'd still been living in his cupboard, Harry had grown used to making the best of broken toys and discarded trinkets, and nothing had fallen out of Dudley's favour more quickly than books. He didn't get many as Vernon didn't want a namby-pamby little bookworm for a son, but when a book somehow found its way to the mountain of presents the boy received for birthdays and Christmas, it would soon be secreted away in the back of the cupboard without ever being missed.

It had been on Dudley's eleventh birthday – the day of the zoo – that the ungrateful git had received _The Usborne Book of Wildlife_. Harry supposed Petunia (who might not have wanted a bookworm, but who wouldn't mind if Dudley remembered to write his name with a capital D now and then…) had snuck it onto the pile in the vain hope that the trip to the zoo might spark some kind of interest. After the zoo, the snake and the ( _beating_ ) following lock-in, the book had become one of Harry's favourites. He had poured over the pretty illustrations and the interesting facts. He had learned about places and creatures far away from his stinking cupboard and he had soaked up every scrap of information like a sponge.

It wasn't detailed, it was a book for kids after all, but he remembered reading that some butterflies only lived for a day or so before they died. At the time, Harry had thought it was sad that – after being stuck as a caterpillar and trapped in a cocoon – when the butterfly finally got to be free and beautiful, it didn't last. Now, though, he wondered. A life of flitting between flowers without care or concern might be a fair trade for brevity.

Did he want to die? If Snape hadn't portkeyed them away before Harry could finish the killing curse, would there have been enough meaning behind his words for it to have worked? Harry didn't know. At the time, he'd thought so. It had seemed like not only the best way to get a little peace, but also the best way to get revenge. If he was only a pig to be fattened for slaughter, why not make sure Dumbledore would fucking choke when the time came?

Nevertheless, when Hogwarts had spun away to be replaced by this little cottage which smelled of woodsmoke and wildflowers, he'd been relieved.

"I don't think I want to die." He said it out loud. He wasn't sure if he'd meant to do so, but it was done now.

Snape looked over the top of the book he was reading and sighed. The man was probably irritated at what he no doubt saw as Harry continuing an argument he'd thought finished. "Nonetheless, Mr. Potter, I will not -"

"No," interrupted Harry, turning to meet the man's eyes. "I wasn't trying to get you to go. Just thinking out loud, I suppose. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Snape closed the book and rested it on his lap. For a moment, he simply studied Harry's face with his usual stoic mask in place. When he spoke at last, his voice was soft. "You do not have to struggle through this alone, Harry. Nor do you have to apologise for talking to me, particularly when delivering welcome news."

Something deep within Harry Potter flipped over and squirmed. He wasn't sure if it was a good feeling or not. "You've never called me Harry before," he said. "And you never wanted me to talk with you before, either."

"Much has changed," said Snape, with little inflection or expression. "Tell me, what has changed in your mind? Yesterday you seemed sure enough when you started to utter the killing curse, though it wouldn't have done much without your wand."

Harry's eyes and voice remained steady, though his guts clenched. "You've seen what I can do without a wand, Professor."

Snape blinked.

Harry's gaze wavered and he looked down at where his hands were gripping the blankets at his lap. He felt surprise at just how little else he felt at the words. "A couple of days ago, I killed two people. Petunia was away at some spa thing, but she was due back last night. She'll know I'm missing by now. Will she know the ashes are them, do you think?"

"I suspect she will figure it out," Snape replied.

Harry nodded and expected to feel a rush of guilt for what she must be going through. It didn't come. "So the muggle police will be out for me, as well as whoever Dumbledore has on his strings. Fantastic."

Snape seemed to consider for a long moment. "Possibly not," he said at last. Harry raised an eyebrow and the man continued. "I imagine that the first thing Dumbledore did last night was to see what triggered your sudden and dramatic behaviour. He may have silenced her to avoid further complications. He is not, after all, averse to obliviating his way around such things."

Harry scowled and then swallowed back his anger, but too late. It was Snape's turn to raise an eyebrow and Harry answered the unasked question, almost spitting his words. "I know it makes me a hypocrite to be annoyed that she gets to forget when I feel so… but she should have to fucking live with this."

Snape considered him again, but Harry didn't shy away. If the man expected him to feel bad about wanting the bitch to hurt for all she'd let happen, he was going to be disappointed. Snape, however, simply nodded once and returned to his original question. "Why do you no longer wish to take your own life?" he asked.

Harry thought through his answer before speaking. "If I quit now, I'd be making it easier for Snakeface to swoop in and destroy everything I love about our world. Yesterday… I think I was just finding it hard to see past the bits I hate. I mean, why should I have to be the one to save a world which let me live in a cupboard for ten years, lied to me, used me and then sent me back to _them_ every summer to be… to be…" Harry couldn't say the word. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away the sense of weakness, and carried on. "Sometimes I feel like the world can just fuck off and sort itself out. You probably think I'm being selfish or whiny or arrogant, don't you?"

Snape shook his head. "You will take it as an insult, but I was thinking that you would have done well in Slytherin."

Harry's small smile was honest. "Yeah," he said, "The Sorting Hat told me that years ago, but Hagrid had already told me that there wasn't a witch or wizard who went bad who hadn't been in Slytherin, so I convinced it to put me anywhere else."

A tiny crack seemed to form in the cool mask of composure that was Snape's face. His eyes widened and a nerve in his neck seemed to twitch. "The hat - ? And Hagrid said - ? And you let the word of that larger-than-life oaf sway your entire future!?"

Harry shrugged and kept his tone reasonable in the face of the flustered professor. "Hagrid was the first friend I ever made," he said. "He was the only insight I had into this weird new world I'd suddenly found myself in, until I met Ron on the train." Harry couldn't argue against Hagrid's oafishness, but he had always considered it a part of the man's charm so didn't feel bad about letting it slide.

The crack widened. The nerve spasmed harder. Snape stood from his chair, the abandoned book falling to the floor, and began to pace. "'The only insight'? Did you not think to read the welcoming prospectus, Potter? Did you not read the house histories?"

Harry blinked at this and felt his spirits, which had lifted a little at talking so honestly to someone, begin to fall again. "The what?" His tone was cold.

Severus Snape stopped mid-pace and stared down at Harry, his mouth a tight line but his eyes wide and blazing. "After your faculty visit – and let us disregard for a second that Albus Dumbledore decided that the most appropriate member of staff to induct The Boy Who Lived into our world, was the _school groundskeeper_ – after that, you should have received a prospectus which told you about the staff and syllabus of Hogwarts, and four scrolls which contained the histories and laudable qualities of the different houses. Every student receives this literature, whether muggle-born, half-blood or pure-blood."

Harry ground his teeth and added another point to the every-expanding list of things Albus Dumbledore had kept from him. He did not kid himself that it could have been an error. "I got a reading list and instructions to go to Platform 9¾," he muttered.

Snape actually growled quietly and began gesturing rather forcefully with his elegant hands as his rant progressed. "And this idea that Slytherin is a boiling pot of Dark wizards, just because the Dark Lord began there, is preposterous. What about Merlin? Even the muggles know something of him, but the fact that the greatest wizard in history was a Slytherin never gets a mention. Slytherins strive for greatness so that we can have control over our own fates and the fate of our world. Is that so bad? We work with reason and yes, we expect to be rewarded. But anyone who toils without hoping for some kind of gain, whether tangible or not, is a fool. _That's_ why I paid you the compliment of saying you would have made a good Slytherin: because you wish to have power over your own fate and you aren't idiot enough to wish to sacrifice yourself for a world which has already taken far too much from you."

Harry could feel slack-jawed surprise erase the anger from his face. He was pretty sure he really had been complimented in there somewhere. "I… well… thanks?" he said. "Does this mean you'll go back to thinking I _am_ an idiot if I said that I wouldn't really give the wizarding world the finger and sod off into the sunset?"

From the doorway, where she stood beside Draco Malfoy, Luna saved Harry from however Snape might have responded. "Too much a lion to slither away," she said. "Too cunning a snake to roar without reason." She seemed to consider a moment, before adding, "A goat would balance you."

Draco looked at the girl. "For a second there, I thought I was starting to follow you," he said, dryly.

Snape seemed to be studying the girl with faint surprise, but said nothing.

Harry looked between Luna and Draco. Both were even more pale than usual, save for the red around their eyes. He felt a stab of guilt at hiding away in bed after leaving them to wade through his sickening memories. "Are you guys okay?" he asked them.

Draco stepped into the room and rubbed at his temple. "You're asking if _we're_ okay. After everything… bloody hell, Harry. At least Luna's little riddles seem to hint at a weird sort of sense. You though… I'm not sure I understand you at all."

Harry half shrugged, uncomfortable. Luna drifted forwards and sat on the bed near his covered feet, upon which she lay a gentle hand. "Every riddle has a solution if you think around the right corners. You've decided you don't want to run from this one," stated the girl.

Harry looked at the girl closely, knowing that she wasn't talking metaphorically. He nodded. "I won't run from Riddle. It'll come down to just me and him in the end, and he's going to keep killing people and tightening his hold on our world until I'm able to face him."

Draco leaned against his godfather's chair, looking between Luna and Harry. When he glanced down to see Snape apparently following the conversation with no difficulty, the boy crossed his arms and exhaled in exasperation. "Riddle? Riddles? What in the blazes am I missing?"

Snape did not take his eyes of Harry, but turned his head a little to reply to the young Slytherin. "The Dark Lord's true name is Tom Marvolo Riddle and there is a prophesy which suggests that Harry is the only one who can truly defeat him."

"'Neither can live while the other survives'" mumbled Harry.

Draco blinked. "Of all of that, the only bit I find surprising is that the Dark Lord's real name is so… well… _muggle._ Tom? Really!?"

Harry met Draco's eye with tired, sardonic humour. "Is this a good time to tell you he's a half blood?"

Draco Malfoy spluttered, stepped away from the chair and slumped to sit on the other side of the bed to Luna. He seemed to have lost the knack of talking.

Snape, who seemed to have been thinking hard ever since Luna and Draco had entered the room, leaned forward and when his eyes met Harry's they glittered fiercely. "If you have decided that you do not wish to run or die, what _do_ you want, Harry?"

Harry regarded each of them in turn. They hadn't left. They hadn't seen the sickness and decided to leave him to it. Luna looked sad but sure. Draco looked to be in a state of flabbergasted fury, but Harry was pretty sure it wasn't aimed at him. Snape looked… well, like he always did, but without the sneer he usually maintained in Harry's presence.

Harry looked down at the hands which rested in the blankets pooled in his lap. They weren't the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy, the skin was almost translucent and the veins and bones beneath seemed too defined. On his left hand were several fine, pink scars.

 _I must not tell lies._

Good advice badly given. The truth then. "When I was little," he began, "I wanted what the other kids had: mum, dad, maybe a brother or sister, a pet. I wanted three square meals and to play outside. I wanted to be allowed to get good marks in school and to have my report cards put on the fridge. But the Dursleys thought I was a freak.

"When I found out I was a wizard, I wanted to fly and learn cool spells and make friends who would never know about the cupboard or the Dursleys. If a wizard can be normal, then I wanted to be normal. But I had this scar and my name was in books and I was a freak again. And then Dumbledore started _grooming_ me to be his sacrificial lamb. And I let him. I trusted him even while he kept me in the dark and sent me to hell every summer. I was a fool."

Harry and met Snape's gaze. He half expected to see derision there, to hear some scornful remark about speeches and arrogance. But the man's eyes were calculating and he maintained his silence, so Harry continued. "I've wanted the impossible for long enough. My parents are dead, so why wish for them? My childhood was rubbish, but if I keep looking over my shoulder at it, I'm just going to trip over the shit on the path ahead. I haven't been a child in a long time. I can't change what's already happened, but I can have some control over my future. If I have to be part of this whole war, and we know I must, then I won't be a puppet or a pawn. Riddle took my parents from me, but Dumbledore took everything else."

Snape's coal-black eyes studied him. Harry bit his lip under the scrutiny. That'd turned into a bit of a speech and now a small flush of embarrassment was creeping up his neck.

At last, Luna drew his attention by gently patting his shin. "Dark is where we expect the monsters, hard to see in the shadows. But light can burn and blind us too. Looking hurts but still we need to see. You want bright in the black, but shade beneath the bright."

Snape turned to regard the girl with narrowed eyes. Harry wondered at the piercing sharpness of the man's expression, but a glance at Luna told him that she was either unconcerned by it or unaware of it.

After a long silence, Draco Malfoy groaned and lowered his face into his hands. "Fucking founders, Potter," he mumbled into his palms. "You don't think small, do you? Is the Dark Lord not a big enough undertaking? You want to take on Dumbledore, too!?"

Harry was spared the necessity of answering when Snape stood and walked to the window. Harry was grateful for the man's ability to draw attention; he wasn't even wearing robes, but something about his very aura seemed to billow darkly. He seemed even more a creature of shadow than usual; a tall, elegant silhouette framed by the light of a brightening day. "Harry, how did you figure out that your memories had been tampered with?" he asked, finally.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't, really. I thought I was going mad. There were all these little pieces of a puzzle and none of them seemed to fit together in a way which made a proper picture. When my magic did what it did, it seemed to burn away some of the fog in my head. All these memories came back and it felt like I was thinking clearly for the first time. I think it burned the trace away, too. I sort of felt it… fizzle out. And no ministry letters turned up, even though I'd used underage magic."

Snape had continued to look out the window as Harry spoke. Now he turned and regarded him steadily. "Three days ago, you were the Golden Boy. Two days ago, you suffered severe physical and psychological trauma _and_ remembered other instances of the same. Yesterday, you were ready to die. Today, you are talking about taking on both the Dark and the Light in a wizarding war. You've chosen a difficult path, Harry."

Well, when put like that, it did sound rather mad. Harry sighed. "At least, this time, it's one I'm choosing for myself, professor. You don't have to come with me, none of you."

Luna squeezed his leg again. "We are where we're meant to be."

Draco Malfoy didn't look quite so certain, but he nodded. "I remain with Severus."

Severus Snape walked back to the chair and sat back down. "Then it is time I introduced you to a friend of mine."


	11. Chapter 11 - The Grey and the Shade

I have activated the entryway.

Password: SESAME_AGORED then knock thrice.

Lloyd grinned, picked up the clicker and turned off the telly. He gulped down the last mouthful of the tea he'd been nursing while glancing between the news and the pager in his hand, upon which the message had just appeared. A small, wooden box and several Tesco bags were already piled up by the front door, next to Lloyd's battered Bergen backpack. The Welshman stowed one dagger in each boot and another up each sleeve. He was ready and eager to go.

He snickered as he typed the password into the keypad beside his door. Open fucking sesame. The grumpy bugger hadn't entirely lost what sense of humour he'd had then. That was good. Surprising, but good. But who in the fuck actually used the word "thrice"?

A beep, a weird tingly feeling and an opened door later, and Lloyd was standing in front of his old friend.

In a blink, Lloyd made a quick assessment of the room. Country cottage. Smelled like home. Sev looked tired, older, but then it'd been a while. Still, weren't wizardy folk meant to live longer? Times must be hard. There were three other people in the room; two youngish blokes and a pretty girl. The girl and the lad with blond hair looked to be in decent shape, but the dark-haired fella looked to be on his last legs. Three exits, including the door now at his back, an internal door opposite and a large window adjacent. First assessment: clear.

"Sev fuckin' Snape," he beamed. "About fuckin' time, mate! It's been bloody ages!" With that, Lloyd flung himself at the tall, stony bastard. He'd promised him a cwtch, after all. Sev didn't pretend to enjoy it, but he didn't throw him off or draw his wand, either, so Lloyd figured he could call it win.

"Lloyd," drawled the man, an awkward pat the only acknowledgment that he was being hugged. "Exuberant as always, I see."

Lloyd grinned and pulled back. "And you're still a sour sod, Sev. It's still bloody good to see you, mind." He waved at the chest and bags in the doorway behind him. "Point your stick at that lot, would you? It's mostly yours, anyway."

Sev rolled his eyes but, sure enough, whipped his stick out and saved Lloyd some trouble. The Welshman smiled and kicked the door shut once everything was in. "So!" he said, still smiling, "What's appertainin' then?"

Lloyd grinned around at the puzzled faces. While his mouth smiled, his eyes studied. The lanky blond bloke fairly dripped breeding. Money, manners, maybe a mammy's boy but maybe not. Hard, untrusting eyes but soft hands. Looked sharp enough. The girl looked like a pixie, a dreamer, but her cupid-bow smile and arched eyebrows knew too much. Better not underestimate her; she reminded Lloyd of Laura and lord knew that woman had more going on behind the scenes than he ever wanted to know about. The last fella looked like maybe he was sick. Bones and hollows where there shouldn't be, but a strong jaw and stubborn shoulders. His hair needed a brush and he looked tired, but his eyes fairly fucking glittered with something strong, something powerful, something -

His eyes.

Lloyd's leg curled back and out in a fluid arc. Severus Snape's wand clattered away from him, like the silly twig it was and the soldier had two knives in his hands before anyone in the room could even begin to blink. Each hilt made his hands feel like they'd found home. He crossed the blades and pressed them, a breath away from hard enough, against the skin of Snape's throat. "You fucking promised me, Severus." His rage blunted his accent while sharpening his words.

Before Severus could speak, Lloyd felt a strange tugging just behind his solar plexus. In the next instant, he flew backwards, pulled by whatever invisible string had gripped him. He hit the wall, his head striking hard enough to send starbursts across his vision, a leg flailing and hitting several books from the shelves to his left.

He expected gravity to step in at that point. He didn't expect his vision to clear to reveal a frail, messy-haired, green-eyed young man stood with an open, empty hand held before him, clearly pinning Lloyd to the wall with nothing more than his will.

Silence can be a physical thing. This one throbbed like a cracked skull.

"Lloyd, do wait to be apprised of the situation before you make any more attempts on my life," said Sev, and the bastard actually sounded bored. Lloyd, however, did not miss the tension in the man's shoulders or the way his shadowed eyes followed the boy. "Harry, allow me to introduce you to Lloyd Llewellyn Evans. Your mother's cousin."

Harry's eyes widened. He dropped his arm as he whirled to regard Severus.

Gravity made a speedy return and Lloyd landed flat on his arse.

Severus Snape had somewhat expected Lloyd's anger. After all, he had promised that Lily's son would be safe under the watchful, twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore. Severus had not, however, expected Harry Potter to jump to his defence by wordlessly and wandlessly pinning a fully-grown-man three feet off the floor against a wall.

As Lloyd landed on his backside with a groan and Harry spun around, Severus wondered whether a single thing about The Boy Who Lived would ever fit expectation. Under his skin, the filings swelled and swerved towards the pull of Potter's power.

"Fucking hell," whispered Draco, from where he sat on the couch.

"Wandless, wordless, wild but well-wielded. Lift, hold and don't let him fall. Not him and not him either," sing-songed Luna from beside him.

"I have a… um… second cousin? And he's your contact?" Harry sputtered, apparently unsurprised or unaffected by the amount of power he'd just wielded.

"First cousin, once removed," Severus corrected absently. "Harry, what spell was that?"

Harry blinked rapidly. "What? Oh, I wasn't really thinking of a specific spell. It was just, um, instinct, a reflex I suppose. He had knives at your throat. What's going on here, Snape? Dumbledore said the Dursleys were my only family, my only option."

Power the Dark Lord knows not. Was this what the bug-eyed bint had meant? Severus swallowed and picked up his wand, using the momentary diversion to calm his thoughts. Finally, he responded. "The Dursleys were your only option as far as the blood wards were concerned, Harry. Lloyd shares your blood, true, but it is a much weaker link than Tuney has as a sister. Besides, when you were sent to live with those beasts, Lloyd was a teenager himself and wasn't even in the country."

Harry looked to be back to his usual form; his mouth hung slack and his eyes were rather glazed. He looked from Snape to Lloyd and back to Snape again. ""Tuney!?" You… you know my aunt?"

Severus cringed internally at his mistake, but kept his countenance as he nodded. "Indeed."

Harry groaned and rubbed his head before finally slumping back into the armchair. "You know my aunt," he repeated, mumbling into his hands. "And do you… did you know Vernon, too? Did you know…?"

"I did not," Severus replied. Surprisingly the question stung, and he almost felt compelled to reassure the boy that had he known the type of man Vernon Dursley had been, he would have taken delight in playing Cast the Unforgivable on the Muggle. However, Severus supposed that might not be as reassuring as he would intend. Besides, the boy was talking again, so the opportunity had passed.

"I'm so sick of everyone else knowing more about my life than I do," Harry mumbled into his hands before finally looking up at Lloyd. "Well, it's nice to meet you," he murmured. "Sorry about the…" he gestured at the wall.

Lloyd frowned down at the boy for a few long moments and Severus could hear the man's cogs whirring. Eventually, Lloyd cracked a smile and waved away the apology. "No worries, Harry, you were just lookin' out for your butty. And it's good to finally meet you, too."

Severus rolled his eyes as Lloyd's accent thickened. "You" became ew, "your" became yewuh. Every syllable dripped with song. He knew it was all a part of the man's I'm-not-threatening-so-go-ahead-and-underestimate-me persona, but it made Severus' teeth ache. He had always preferred the don't-fuck-with-me look on himself, after all. "Wonderful," he drawled. "Now that the introductions have been made with only minor bodily harm and no bloodshed, shall we get to business?"

Draco, who had followed the scene like a spectator at a particularly fast-paced quidditch match, spoke up. "Is that it? We aren't going to talk about Potter's sudden grasp of wandless, wordless magic?"

Luna, beside him, smiled. "We already have. Harry said it was instinct, don't you remember? Have the wrackspurts got back in? We should really consider hanging some corn to distract them."

Lloyd grinned. "Corn? Because they come in through the ears, right? Make your brain go all fuzzy?"

Luna Lovegood beamed. It was the brightest she had smiled all day. "Ears are ears. They're not very clever."

"You must be a fellow Quibbler enthusiast!" Lloyd held out his hand and Severus noticed, with the smallest sliver of amusement, that Draco Malfoy was now frowning at the Welsh soldier. The frown intensified when Luna took and shook the offered hand.

Harry seemed not to have noticed the exchange; he had turned away and was looking into the cold fireplace with troubled eyes.

The vacuum in Harry's chest was back and his head had started to ache again. Two days ago, he killed one cousin with the white-hot flame of his rage, and today, another cousin (first cousin once removed, Snape said. Removed from what? Removed from me?) had strolled through a magical door and then attacked Snape with knives. And Snape knew Petunia. And this Lloyd bloke was apparently the person Snape had set up as a failsafe. And the instinctive magic was some kind of big deal.

The headache seemed to bloat and swell behind Harry's eyes. His body was sore again. His eyes were tired. His thin frame was cold. Maybe he should ask Snape to light the fire. Or…

Harry frowned at the hearth. The logs and kindling were already there, all Harry would need was a spark, he supposed. If he'd had his wand, he knew exactly the spell and the wand movement he'd use. But earlier, when he'd held Lloyd up in the air, he hadn't been focused on a special word or a particular motion. He'd just gathered his magic and understood that he could will the knife-wielding man away from the potions professor's neck. His magic was right there, after all; an endless pool of shivering tingles which he'd become more aware of recently, especially since he'd developed his focus for occlumency.

Harry cleared his mind and reached. A ribbon of smoke became a lick of flame became a roaring fire. It actually took less time than saying Incendio, and now he had everyone's attention, too.

The new guy looked impressed. Luna smiled. Draco gaped.

Snape's coal-black eyes seemed to be burning, too, but otherwise his mask was in place. "Instinctive reflex?" he asked.

Harry shook his head, then rubbed at his temples. "No, this time I was thinking about it. Look, I'm feeling pretty wrecked. Do you think we could jump ahead to the bit where someone tells me how my mum's cousin fits in to what we discussed earlier? Because I'm pretty sure that I need to take some painkillers and pass out for at least a little while."

Harry could see that Snape and Draco weren't about to let it go, so he was grateful that Lloyd Evans interjected first. "Well, while it's possible Sev just fancied getting' all warm and fuzzy at our little family reunion, I think it's prob'ly more likely that the shit has hit the fan and you all need the people I work with. I'm not a gamblin' man, Harry, but I'd bet Sev intends to draw the Shade."


	12. Chapter 12 - Weapons and Weaknesses

"What's the shade?" asked Harry. His eyes darted quickly to meet Luna's, across the room. Hadn't she said something about light and dark and shade earlier? However, the girl's eyes held only a twinkle of a smile, not any answers.

Lloyd chuckled. "Nah, lad. You're sayin' it wrong. It's not "the shade"; it's "The Shade"." At that, Lloyd settled himself into a hunkered position with his back to the wall. It didn't escape Harry's notice that he was now in a position which let him see every hand, every wand and every exit. He wondered when he'd started picking up on things like that.

Harry blinked across at the man. "I don't follow," he admitted.

Lloyd's grin broadened. "It's got to be all proper-nouned up," he explained. "It's important, see?"

Harry blinked again and looked around the room. It was perhaps less than surprising that Snape was rolling his eyes, Draco was grinding his teeth and Luna was smiling serenely. No surprise, but no help either. Harry's head felt as though beetles were chewing through his brain with sharp and venomous fangs. The ache behind his eyes was now a deep pounding. White noise hissed in his ears. And in his guts anger began to burn.

"Look," he said, his voice tight. "You seem fun and everything, and it's nice to know Petunia isn't the only blood I have left, but we don't have much time here. Pretty soon, Dumbledore is going to have all his pieces ready to play and if we let him make the first move before we even know what his game is, then we're fucked. So I'll ask again, and this time I'd appreciate it if you could just answer the damn question without any of the sparkly bullshit so that I can eat, sleep and get my shit together."

Lloyd's grin faltered. For a second, Harry felt the man studying him, but then he nodded, stood and spoke to the air above Harry's head. "The Shade is a private company of several dozen men and women, including Adapts and Adepts, who work to monitor the balance between the Light and Dark of magical society. We work outside ministry, monarchy and parliament. We aim to ensure the continuation of magical energy while ensuring non-magical survival and defence. If either Light or Dark endangers the balance, we have developed methods which may provide an additional line of defence before the system crumbles."

Well it sounded like a straight answer, as far as Harry could tell. So why did nothing seem any clearer? He looked to where Snape stood across the room. "Professor?" he asked and then awaited Snape's customary scathing response to those who didn't understand a thing the first time. Harry almost missed Hermione for a second. Maybe she could have translated the soldier's odd report while Harry fought down an odd urge to salute.

Snape didn't scathe, though. Instead, he sat in an empty seat and spoke. "The Shade isn't an easy thing to explain, Potter, and it would take too long even to attempt such a thing right now, though in time I hope to confess all that needs to be confessed to you." The man paused and Harry felt a chill crawl through his blood. Before he could worry about it, Snape continued. "For now, simply understand that they are … an army of sorts. A hidden group made up of people who believe that perhaps the fates of millions should not be decided by two old wizards in a grudge match."

Harry frowned, but as he was about to speak, Draco beat him to it. "I thought you trusted Dumbledore," said the Slytherin, taking the words right out of Harry's mouth.

Snape nodded. "I do… I did. But I have never understood how a group as small and as prejudiced as the Order of the Phoenix could be expected to fight for so many in our world who hold such conflicting views about magic, Dark and Light."

"Prejudiced?" It was Harry who asked this time.

Draco snorted, but it was a bitter sound. "Come off it. You know damned well that everyone despises Slytherin, Harry. And the world is so bloody indoctrinated against the very idea of Dark Arts that they've been struck from the school syllabus!"

Harry swallowed and for a brief moment, his confusion muted the growing pain in his head. "But…" he hesitated, knowing he was about to put his foot in something messy, "Aren't the Dark Arts evil? And isn't Slytherin the house they're usually linked with?"

Harry almost winced at the twin expressions of old-but-still-sharp outrage which shadowed the faces of the two Slytherins in the room. Draco looked to be gearing up to let loose a diatribe, but Lloyd Evans held up a rough hand to stall the boy.

"A pal of mine," Lloyd interjected, before Draco could begin, "explained it to me once. In muggle schools, kids get taught science, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Well," Evans continued, "when kids do experiments and stuff in class, they're taught how to be safe about it. Gloves and goggles and don't-lick-the-petri-dishes and all that." The man raised an eyebrow, evidently seeking some kind of acknowledgement from Harry, who simply nodded again. "Teaching DADA but not the Dark Arts themselves, is like teaching a kid to put on gloves, but never allowing them to light the Bunsen burner in case they get scorched."

Harry thought about it for a moment. "DADA classes in my experience are plenty dangerous," he said at last. "Between dementors and possessed professors, it's not exactly been a health and safety paradise."

Lloyd shook his head. "Not my point. I'm saying science isn't all about avoiding a few burns and spills. You can't just teach the safe stuff if you want the kids to learn."

Harry considered; he could see where the man was trying to take the analogy, but wasn't sure things were that straightforward. "It's different. A science class isn't about to do to a pupil the sorts of things that the Dark Arts can."

Harry could see that Lloyd was about to answer, but it was Snape's voice that responded to his statement. "Is it not?" asked the potions professor's smooth voice. "I have often thought the Cruciatus curse feels much like an acid is burning through my nerves. Muggle pupils as young as first years work with acids in their schools, I believe."

The ache in Harry's temples throbbed harder still. Again, he could see what Snape was getting at, but the comparison just didn't hold water. "Hydrochloric acid doesn't _mean_ to burn; it doesn't _intend_ to cause harm. Crucio doesn't have any purpose other than to torture people."

Snape's ever-expressive eyebrow raised. "A spell is as without intent as any chemical, Potter. It is the person wielding either who has the intent."

Harry frowned. "But if all a thing can do is cause hurt, why put it in the hands of-"

Surprisingly, it was Luna's turned to interrupt. "Even an empty hand can make a fist," she smiled softly, and Harry couldn't think of anything to say to that while his head pounded and little lines of light began to creep through his vision. He shook his head in an effort to stave off the pain and fatigue for just a little longer.

Apparently, Lloyd Evans realised that his time was short. "We can debate the morality of it all another time, Harry. For now, try to understand that my colleagues and I have been preparing for the shit to hit the fan for more than a decade."

Harry tried to say something, but his lips felt weirdly numb and his words didn't seem to be working.

"So," began Draco, "You're not against the Light or the Dark, but you're not with them, either?"

Snape frowned. "It would not be accurate to envisage The Shade as a third party in a war of binary opposites. More correct would be the suggestion that they are a way of maintaining the infrastructure of the magical world."

Lloyd Evans interjected. "Christ alive, Sev. You make us sound like the sewer maintenance blokes, or a bunch of bloody gardeners!"

Harry tiredly looked back to Snape, expecting a tirade. Instead, the potions professor seemed to consider the words of the young soldier before quirking his lips in a half smile. "An apt analogy, Lloyd." Before Lloyd could respond (and Harry thought it very much looked like the man wanted to respond in the negative), Snape continued. "When a tree's branches grow too big for its roots to support, when they suffocate other plants and begin to tear apart the stone of civilisation, what is there to be done, but a bit of pruning?"

Harry watched the smile spread across his new-found cousin's face. "Ah, I've got you. And when a sewer gets all blocked up with shit, someone has to tackle it with a massive, fuck-off plunger, right?"

Snape sighed. "I should have known you'd take the analogy in your usual colourful direction, Evans," he said, and Harry actually chuckled. He stopped when it made his head throb just a little harder, and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

The biting beetles had grown bigger. The ache was now a savage pounding. The hiss of white noise had become a roar. Harry took a few steadying breaths and clenched his jaw against the pain. When he opened his eyes again, four worried faces watched him.

Severus got to his feet and held out a hand to Harry. "I believe you requested an analgesic and "passing out", Potter. If your curiosity requires further assuaging, it shall have to wait until after you eat, rest and allow me to administer some healing potions."

Harry took Snape's offered hand and allowed him to lead the way.

*x*x*

A while after Harry had been given pain-killing and Dreamless Sleep potions, which would allow him a few hours of peaceful and restful oblivion, the three remaining wizards had made proper introductions and apprised Lloyd Llewellyn Evans of the situation they found themselves in. It had been a surprisingly quick tale to tell and now a silence had fallen in the living room of Snape's safe house.

"So!" Evans exclaimed, his eyes bright and his voice sharp. "Old Tommy-twat-for-brains is being as much of a dick as ever and now the Light is compromised, too. Dumbledore's gone power-mad and you lot've had to scarper unless you fancy hunkering down under the old man's thumb again. And Harry has had a shit time of it between the rock and the hard place, because nobody gave enough of a shit to have a look in at him now and then."

Draco Malfoy scowled. He had remained quiet while Severus supplied the newcomer with the pertinent details, glossing over – but not excluding - many of the sickening horrors of Potter's memories. This facetious flippancy loosened his irritation and he aimed his sneer at the Welshman. "There is no humour in this, muggle. And don't dare to lay all the blame at doors other than your own; you could have "looked in" on your blood, easy enough."

The muggle kept that bright, sharp expression not on Draco, but on Severus. "You're right. I should have. I should have checked on the lad myself."

Draco blinked. He hadn't expected the man to agree and didn't really know what to say to such an admission. He found himself looking to Luna, hoping perhaps for some kind of support. The girl, however, had her attention focused on their potions master. Draco followed her gaze to see Severus Snape looking out of the window. The man's expression was a study in regret. Lines which Draco was sure had not been there before yesterday now seemed etched into Severus' pale face. His lips were a bitter pink slash of remorse. The line of his jaw seemed even harder than usual, as though the man was clenching his teeth. And his dark eyes seemed like pools of shadow and shame.

At last, Severus Snape turned to meet Lloyd Evans' eyes. "No apology I can offer to you will ever be enough. I have trusted blindly and believed foolishly, and if you were to demand my wand or my life in recompense, I ask only that you allow me to use both in aid of The Shade before you call in my debt."

Draco felt something in his chest crack at the expression on his godfather's face. Until that moment, he would not have thought that an admission of fault could be somehow honourable. He had been taught to play at perfection. He had been taught that flaws were to be abhorred and denied, not confronted head on.

Lloyd Evans closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. Draco almost imagined he could sense some of the man's anger leave in the exhalation. Then the soldier shook his head. "I don't want you dead, Sev. But it ain't me you need to worry about apologising to. It's a start; don't get me wrong, but if you want to make amends, it's the boy you should be making big and noble pledges to."

Severus bowed his head once in terse acknowledgement.

Then they heard the scream.

*x*x*

 _The Dark Lord (_ _Harry I'm Harry I'm not him just Harry_ _) sat on what could safely be described as a throne in Lestrange Castle. The building had recently been as run down and devoid of warmth as the woman (_ _Bellatrix bitch she killed Sirius no she didn't yes she did stop screaming_ _) who now cringed and cowered and kissed at the hem of his robes. Her penitent form pleased him and he placed a grey, almost-scaled hand on her matted head of dark curls._

 _"_ _Tell me, faithful little Bella, what do you have to report?" His voice was frost._

 _Murky, adoring eyes turned from the floor to the man (_ _monster evil fiend fucking bastard_ _) and Bellatrix Lestrange seemed to struggle to breathe as she battled with her awe._

 _"_ _Master," she gasped. "It has been confirmed; Narcissa's brat and Snape are gone. They were last seen helping an injured Harry Potter from the Hogwarts Express. There was a girl with them. Ravenclaw. Xenophilius Lovegood's girl. They vanished soon after. None have been seen since."_

 _Once she had finished, Bellatrix (_ _bitch god damned bitch_ _) flinched away in anticipation of the wrath she knew was coming from her master (_ _me I'll do it I'll kill her me_ _)._

 _Voldemort (_ _me? Harry?_ _) raised his wand and sent a Crucio burning (_ _like acid it burns like acid like acid hope it burns like_ _) through the nerves of his most devoted Death Eater._

As Voldemort ( _Harry_ ) laughed with casting, Harry ( _just Harry_ ) burned with the pain.

It _did_ feel like acid burning through his nerves.

Harry tried to claw his way up from the grasping embrace of unconsciousness, but the potions held him in their grasp. All he could do was scream.

*x*x*

Severus was intimately, distressingly familiar with the Cruciatus curse. He'd cast it many times. He'd felt it many times more. He'd witnessed it more times than he could count. Thus, as he watched the already frail young man on the bed twitch and writhe and scream, he knew almost immediately what his affliction was.

"Holy fuck… Is that…?" Draco asked at his shoulder.

Severus nodded, knowing the boy also understood what he was seeing. Severus moved forward to tried and do something, _anything_ for the boy, but Luna Lovegood was ahead of him.

"Like acid," she whispered. Her voice breathed sadness. "It really does burn like acid. A throne and a woman and burning burning burning."

Draco reached out to the girl. "Luna?" he asked, but she seemed not to hear him.

"The caster and the sufferer," the girl continued and for a heartbeat, Snape imagined that the moonlight of her hair was glowing. "The lord and the servant. The balance is tipping. A fulcrum unmaking. He laughs…"

As she said it, Snape watched in horror as the boy on the bed began to laugh, even as he screamed. Maniacal screeching mirth that mixed with the shrieks of pain like razorblades might mix with broken glass.

The girl sat beside Harry on the bed and rested a hand on his damp brow. Snape half expected the boy to still at the contact, but he didn't.

"For Merlin's sake, can't we wake him?" asked Draco, his voice almost a shout to be heard over the screams.

Severus shook his head, and cursed.

On the bed, Harry began clawing at himself. He scraped jagged, unkempt fingernails over his neck and face as though trying to peel away his own skin. Snape rushed forward and grabbed the boy's hands before he could do more than raise a few scratches down his cheeks. For all he had suffered, Harry's body held a remarkable amount of wiry strength as he fought the pain of the curse.

He had almost forgotten Lloyd until the man came bursting into the room, carrying a syringe full of an opalescent liquid. "Hold him down," commanded the man, his hazel eyes flashing with worry. "Can't that twig of yours do something?"

Severus scowled. If he reached for his wand, Harry might claw his eyes out before any spell could be cast. "Draco! Immobulus! Now!" There was no time to question what Lloyd had in the syringe. In the boy's weakened state, there was only so much more of the agony he could take.

Draco did as commanded and Harry froze. His back was arched and the tendons in his neck strained. The hands under Snape's were curled in a simulacrum of arthritic agony.

Lloyd Evans stabbed the syringe into Harry's thigh and Snape watched the liquid disappear. In just three rapid heartbeats, Harry's body relaxed and his eyes flew open.

"Professor," the boy coughed, his voice rough from screaming, "Voldemort knows you and Draco are with me. And Luna. They mentioned Luna's dad…" A coughing fit stopped him.

Snape met Draco's eyes and saw resignation there. The boy had already known what his decision might mean for his parents. Both turned to Luna, but the fear Severus had expected to see on her elfin features was conspicuously absent. Instead, the girl smiled and then looked down at Harry, pulling a coin from her pocket.

Harry smiled. "A DA galleon?" he asked.

Luna returned the smile. "I may have … borrowed the idea and made something similar. I sent dad a message last night."

Snape felt the boy under his hands relax further and only then realised that he was still holding his hands down. He let go and stood up, turning to face the Lovegood girl. "You sent a message?" He kept his voice as calm as he could.

The girl had the gall to turn that wide-eyed and innocent smile on him. "Of course," she confirmed. "I couldn't fit much on the coin but I told him to trust nobody, go to ground and to take one of the presses with him. He'll be gone by now."

Severus unclenched his jaw and shared a relieved glance with Lloyd and Draco. Harry just chuckled very tiredly and tried to sit up.

Severus placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to stop him. "Lie down, Harry. You need to rest."

Harry, however, was shaking his head. "No," he said. "Both sides are going to be getting ready for… well, whatever it is that's coming. I can't just lie here. The longer we wait, the stronger they get. Besides, even Dreamless Sleep didn't work this time. If I go back to sleep, I might get hit with Crucio again. I don't think I'm ready for that quite yet."

Severus nodded reluctantly and helped the boy to sit up, even going as far as to conjure an extra pillow to place behind the young man. After summoning a few potions, he turned to Lloyd. "That potion you gave him…?"

Lloyd shook his head. "It wasn't a potion. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite. It's something the Adapts came up with: an anti-potion which sort of grounds or cancels out many types of magic. It shouldn't react badly with a Pepper-up or another painkiller."

Snape handed the vials to Harry, who quickly emptied them.

"You have a potion which counters Crucio?" Snape tried to keep the astonishment from his voice; he had been trying for years to create such a thing, but to no avail. His ego was almost relieved to see the Welshman's refutation.

Lloyd shook his head. "No. It cancelled out what you gave him to knock him out and keep him under. It's kind of like a bezoar for a decent range of potions, poisons and spells." The man seemed to consider for a moment, but then continued. "I thought it looked like the Cruciatus curse; it really was? How?"

Severus watched as Harry shuffled awkwardly and muttered, "I… sometimes I… see…" Harry stuttered and stumbled for a few moments before finally firming his jaw and meeting his cousin's eyes. "I have visions. Sometimes, when I sleep – actually, sometimes I'm awake when it happens now – it's like I'm in his head."

Luna ran a hand through Harry's sweat-damp hair and smiled benignly.

Draco slumped heavily onto the bed at Harry's feet, eyes horrified.

Severus met Lloyd's sad eyes and swallowed back bile. He'd known the boy endured the occasional glance at the Dark Lord's happenings, of course. After all, those disastrous occlumency lessons had been initiated because of that very fact. But to both see and feel was too much.

"What about Occlumency?" asked Lloyd. "A healer friend of mine helped a seer friend of mine learn it so that she can shut her third eye every once in a while."

Harry blushed ever so slightly and suddenly seemed to find his own hands in his lap fascinating. "Professor Snape tried to teach me, but I never really got the hang of it."

Severus just barely refrained from rolling his eyes and making a scathing comment. Now was certainly not the time to discuss Potter's complete failure to grasp even the more rudimentary aspects of mental shielding.

Lloyd seemed to guess at some of Snape's thoughts, though the potions master knew none showed on his face, for the man was frowning up at him with an odd expression.

"Well," Lloyd said, after a moment, "Maybe that healer friend of mine can offer you a couple of tips."

On the bed, Harry offered a tired half smile. "I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause; I'm hopeless."

Lloyd Evans shook his head, vehemently. "You are no such thing," he said.

Severus felt a little chill run through his blood. Beside Harry, Luna was nodding and smiling. At the boy's feet, Draco's jaw was tight but his eyes were strangely kind. Harry himself was looking up at his newfound cousin with a tentative sort of hopeful gratitude. But when Harry had cast aspersions on his own potential, Severus' first inclination had been to agree out of mean habit.

"Hogwarts wasn't built in a day," came Luna's mellifluous voice, and Snape felt strangely sure that she was responding to his own thoughts, not Harry's words.

Lloyd nodded and seemed about to continue, but at that moment the pager in his pocket started beeping. The Welshman checked the device while chuckling at Draco, who had jumped and drawn his wand at the high-pitched triad of beeps. After pushing a button in what Severus recognised as a pattern of Morse code, the man replaced the pager and looked back to Harry. "The Shade is drawn. Ready to meet those friends of mine?"

Severus was oddly gratified when Harry looked to him for a moment, as though ascertaining his professor's thoughts on the matter, before finally nodding.


	13. Chapter 13 – Tŷ Cysgod

Harry wasn't sure what to expect as he stepped through the front door of Snape's safe house, which had been magically connected to wherever it was Lloyd Evans was taking them. Despite the soldier's description, Harry rather imagined The Shade to be another Order of the Phoenix: a rather ragtag group, meeting in a kitchen somewhere – perhaps with their own version of Molly Weasley scuttling about with pots of tea and home-baked cookies.

He did not expect to find himself in what seemed to be a small, windowless cube of white plastic about the size of Petunia Dursley's living room, feeling a tingle run through him from his toes up to his eyebrows as (Lloyd had explained) someone beyond the cubicle scanned them all for stray curses or charms. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, but the expectant silence afterwards left him feeling oddly uncomfortable. He suddenly felt sure that an alarm was about to go off and red lights were about to start flashing out some warning or other, alerting everyone that there was something wrong with him and his magic. Maybe men in those full-body yellow suits – the kind government scientists wore in science fiction movies – would burst from nowhere and drag him away. They'd warn his friends to stay away. They'd warn them he was a frea-

A green light pinged into existence on the wall in front of them. Harry was almost too surprised to feel relief and before he fully grasped the meaning of the green light, it was replaced by a door-sized aperture in the sterile wall of white plastic. Beyond the doorway, flanked by two armed men in grey fatigues, stood a tall woman with severe dark eyes and an almost painfully-tight bun. She was dressed in a lab coat and her jaw was an angry line as she glared at the man beside Harry.

"Sandra!" exclaimed Lloyd, with what Harry thought to be rather insincere joviality. "Corvus said you were visiting some magical ruin or other in Japan. I didn't expect to see you here today!"

"I bet," deadpanned the woman with an eyebrow-arch that Harry thought Snape might approve of. "Luckily for all of us, Laura suggested I might want to cut my trip short by a day or two." She had the faintest hint of an accent Harry couldn't identify. He thought it might be German, but it was subtle and he wasn't very good with accents. Whatever it was, it served to make her sound even more stern.

After a moment of tension in which the woman seemed to calm herself with a breath, Lloyd turned to Harry and gestured to the woman. "Harry, this is Doctor Sandra Helbig. She's our head of research and operations. Sandra, this is Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood and Draco Malfoy. And Sev, of course."

Sandra Helbig rolled her dark eyes, but some of the annoyance seemed to drain from her face as she turned to nod to the wizards and witch in the room. "Welcome to Tŷ Cysgod," she said to them all before turning to face Snape directly. "It is particularly good to see you again, Severus," she said, and Harry was surprised the woman's hard edges could soften as much as they did when she looked to the potions master.

He was doubly surprised when his potions professor stepped forward and bowed to the woman gallantly. "Always a delight, Sandra," he said in his deep tones, and the doctor's eyes sparkled.

Behind Harry, it sounded like Draco might be choking on his own tongue.

What followed was a rather whirlwind introduction to Tŷ Cysgod. Dr. Helbig led Harry and his small group through winding corridors which connected myriad laboratories and offices. At times, Harry could see through the windows into the rooms beyond, and those fleeting glimpses were enough to show Harry that The Shade was to the Order what Oz was to Kansas.

As Dr. Helbig led them to wherever it was she was leading them, she talked.

"What you are seeing on this level of Tŷ Cysgod is, for want of a better term, the heart of the operation." The woman evidently disdained the synecdoche. "On other floors, we have various divisions of research, combat, engineering and so on, but all of them are controlled from here."

Harry didn't have breath left to ask questions; Dr. Helbig's stride was long and Harry's own exhausted limbs were struggling. He was relieved when she finally paused in the centre of another sterile, white corridor and held her arms out to her sides, pointing at the signs on two opposing doors. To Harry's left, a sign read ADAPT. To his right, the sign read ADEPT.

The doctor levelled a quick scowl at Lloyd Evans before meeting Harry's eyes directly. "I assume you've been treated to the delight that is Commander Evans' spiel about The Shade. Something about us being "beyond ministry, monarchy and parliament", if memory serves?"

Harry looked to his newfound cousin, wondering if an affirmative answer would get the man into trouble. However, the man – the "commander" apparently – just grinned and winked, so Harry nodded.

The line of the doctor's jaw reminded Harry of the time McGonagall had taken fifty points each from him, Ron and Hermione back in first year. Indeed, even after such a brief amount of time in this woman's acquaintance, Harry was beginning to suspect that this would not be the only similarity to his stern but principled head of house. Her tone was as dry and sour as Harry's transfiguration professor's had ever been.

"Dramatic as the Commander's synopsis is, it is rather less than transparent. In more sensible terms, The Shade is a vigilante group."

Harry saw his own shock mirrored on Draco's face. Even Luna's brows raised a little at the bald statement. A glance at Snape's face, however, and Harry saw quiet approval and a hint of wry amusement.

Harry considered a moment. Vigilantes? The word summoned images of rebels and criminals, rule-breakers who took the law into their own hands. He supposed that pretty much summed up what he was planning on becoming, given his chat with his strange assembly of companions that morning. After a moment, he nodded for Dr. Helbig to continue.

"We were created at the end of Dark War II, seventeen years ago. After Voldemort fell that first time, most of wizarding Britain celebrated. But there were those left with no family to celebrate with."

She paused here, and Harry knew she was speaking from personal experience. He wondered how old she would have been back then. She had one of those faces which made her age hard to guess. Her face was admittedly striking and mostly unlined, but the tight bun might have been partly responsible for the latter. The hard edge of her jaw and the deep crease of a permanent frown added an air of experience, but might only indicate that hers was a life hard lived. Harry supposed he'd guess her age to be somewhere close to thirty-five, but he wouldn't be all that surprised if she turned out to be a few years younger or a decade older.

"And it wasn't just magical families that had been affected," she continued. "The Death Eaters often had muggles, muggle-borns, squibs and blood traitors at their revels. When targeting so many, it is perhaps not surprising that some of their victims slipped through the cracks."

At this point, Lloyd interjected. "A kid hiding in a closet here, a visiting relative who had popped by for a visit there… It all added up. The aurors tracked down a bunch of the muggle victims and modified their memories, but a certain margin of error is to be expected."

Harry frowned and leaned back against the wall for support. His body was aching and his head was once again spinning. A small voice in the back of his head wondered why they were discussing this in a corridor. Didn't these people do couches? He shook off the thought and some of the fuzziness around his brain in time to hear Draco asking a question.

"Are you saying that The Shade is an organisation of… what… muggle war orphans?" The blond's voice was incredulous, but Harry could hear that he was making an effort to subdue his sneer.

Lloyd shook his head slightly. "No," he said. "Not all of the survivors were children, and not all were non-magical."

Harry watched Draco lose the battle with his eyebrow, which now crept higher at the doctor's response.

It was Luna's turn to speak. "Scattered fragments and remnants all pooling together like spilled mercury. How do the drops now where to drift?"

Dr. Helbig shared a glance at Lloyd but did not respond to Luna's words. Harry wasn't sure the girl's question hadn't been rhetorical.

In the ensuing pause, Harry gathered his thoughts. "So, you're a vigilante group made up of people affected by the last war, and yet you aren't against the Dark side?"

Lloyd chuckled deeply and muttered something which sounded suspiciously like "Darth Vadermort". Harry was surprised by his own little snicker of humour at the image. At the sound, Lloyd met his eyes and Harry saw a strange warmth of hope there. He offered a small and tired almost-smile, before turning back to the group to see Malfoy looking puzzled, Snape and the Doctor looking slightly disdainful and Luna looking into the middle distance with her usual half smile.

"Indeed," said Dr. Helbig, and Harry realised she was responding to his earlier question. "When The Shade was established, there was some debate initially as to whether we should take a definitive stance against the Dark. However, just as not all of those victimised were muggle, not all were necessarily Light wizards either. There was much debate in that first year or so as to the nature and even the morality of different magics. Eventually, it became apparent that until we had a more scientific and objective understanding of magic as a force, we could not truly commit ourselves to the greater good."

Harry shuddered a little. Dumbledore had so often used those last two words that Harry couldn't help but be wary of them. Before bits of broken memories could assault him, Harry leaned more heavily against the wall for support and shook his head minutely. He was getting the feeling that this conversation was going to be a long one, but it seemed too important to finally find out what the hell was going on; he couldn't ask for a delay and a bit of a sit-down. He pushed against the rising anxiety caused by thoughts of his old mentor, and at the grey film that seemed to be creeping over his vision. He listened to the Doctor as she continued.

"It has taken many years and much work, but our researchers have come to understand that both Light and Dark magic are needed to sustain the magical world and, indeed, non-magical existence as well. But they are needed in balance. When either Dark or Light threatens to overwhelm the other, the results are catastrophic."

Before Harry could ask what she meant by that, she was already continuing. "The Shade began as a group of victims, veterans and survivors of the last war, who wanted to build something that might be able to intervene should another Dark War occur. We thought our enemy would be another megalomaniac. Then, for a time, we became researchers, seeking to learn exactly how we could best serve this cause. As we learned, we discovered that the greatest threat to our world was likely not going to be anything so simple as a man with delusions of grandeur."

Harry was starting to feel frustrated. "What does that mean, exactly?" asked Harry.

It was Snape who answered. "It means, Mr. Potter, that The Shade discovered that a balance of magic is all that keeps the veil between this world and those parallel to it stable and strong. Every time the balance between magic shifts, tears form in that veil. A sort of hole is created: a gap in the fabric of our realities. Through these cracks, our planet's magical energy is slowly bleeding out, while at the same time, magical spores from the parallel are leaking in."

"Magical spores?" asked Draco.

Snape nodded. "Tell me, Mr. Potter. What do you know about the dementors?"

Harry blinked at the seemingly incongruous question. "Umm…" he faltered at first but gathered his scattering wits at the sight of Snape's raised eyebrow. "They guard Azkaban. They feed on happiness and make you feel like you'll never feel anything good ever again. They can be driven away by a patronus, but can't be destroyed. Uh…" Harry paused again and thought hard; he knew he was missing something. "They can suck out a soul and they make you relive your worst memories. I think that's all I have."

Snape nodded and his brow settled again. "Not much more is known of them, save two more things. Firstly, their numbers have waxed and waned dramatically throughout history with the greatest recorded peeks being during the early 1940s and the late 1970s to early 80s. Numbers decreased vastly in 1945 and again in 1981."

Draco frowned as he put the dates together. "Their numbers grew when Grindelwald and Voldemort were at their most powerful, and they decreased the year Dumbledore and Harry defeated them."

Snape nodded proudly at his godson.

"And what's the last thing we know about dementors?" Harry asked, his voice catching a little.

"That they propagate in much the same way as fungi, given the right conditions."

Harry paled and shuddered. Beside him, Draco and Luna did the same. "The magical spores?" he asked. "The spores leaking through the cracks make the dementors?"

"Yes," said Dr. Helbig, her tone matter-of-fact. "Thus far, the condition of the magical balance has kept their corruption in any kind of check. But that balance is tipping now. It will take very little for to falter. If it does, the dementors will become a plague. There will be no stopping the numbers that would spawn."

She said it so drily that it took Harry a moment to really process what she was saying. An unstoppable plague of dementors. A world where they sprang up like mushrooms out of damp. A world of worst memories where nobody could ever feel happy. Such a world wouldn't last long enough to save. Harry swayed at the hopelessness of it all and thought he might be about to faint again.

It was at that moment, however, that the door labelled ADEPT swung open to reveal a tall man dressed in a strange, high-collared black tunic that left his arms bare. He had dark hair and eyes like whiskey. Those eyes surveyed the group in the corridor with quick intelligence, lingering long enough on Harry to make him feel like he might blush if his body had had the energy for it.

At last the man crossed his muscular arms over a broad chest and spoke. "Dearest Sandra," he said, his voice light with false humour. "Is it a new policy to make all our guests stand about in cold corridors, or have you been saving these manners for the pretty ones who look like a first-year's leviosa might knock them off their feet?"

Apparently, Harry had enough energy left to blush after all.

Harry wasn't the only one blushing. Dr. Helbig's razor-sharp cheekbones were softened by a rosy tint and her dark, hawk-like brows suddenly conveyed a muted sort of dismay as she considered the man's accusation. She began to stutter something that might have been an apology to Harry but he shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I held you up by asking questions."

The man in the ADEPT doorway smiled. "So polite!" he mocked. "In the name of such politeness, allow me to introduce myself. Doctor Hemlock Roscoe at your service. No, don't all introduce yourselves just yet; you'll be stuck out here another eternity before you're done. Let's take this somewhere there's a kettle, shall we? Good. Follow me then."

All of this was said without pause in a tone of such good humour and with an accent of such well-bred refinement that there was no room to respond or interrupt. Harry blinked around at his companions. Draco looked both shell-shocked and impressed. Severus looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but was fighting the impulse. Lloyd was trying not to laugh. Dr. Helbig was all hard edges again and Luna was looking into the middle distance with her usual half smile.

A few paces down the corridor, Dr. Hemlock Roscoe paused and glanced back at them. "Well?" he asked.

With an irritated sigh, Dr. Helbig followed and, after a moment, so did the rest.


	14. Chapter 14 - Running on Empty

Draco Malfoy rather wished he could conjure a parchment and quill to take notes, so impressed was he with the aristocratic nonchalance of Dr. Please-call-me-Hemlock Roscoe. To say the man screamed good breeding would not do him justice, for good breeding would never scream. Instead, it seemed almost to _flirt_ from him. On odd choice of verb, to be sure, but it certainly seemed to fit the man's smile and swagger.

Lucius Malfoy had always prided himself on his perceived superiority, and had taught Draco to do the same. The man would never have deigned to lower himself to perform any task that could be described as menial, lest it demean him. As Draco watched Hemlock prepare a tray of tea, sandwiches and cake, he thought his father might not have been able to summon even a sneer. Hemlock made making tea look like a dance and the entire time he was brewing it, he orchestrated introductions, handled exposition with ruthless efficiency and got everyone settled.

The group was sat in a room which, after the clinical corridors, had seemed strange in its domesticity until Hemlock had explained that they were in fact in his private rooms. Apparently, many members of The Shade lived in-house, and the sofas in the meeting rooms of Tŷ Cysgod were "too intolerably utilitarian for words, darling!" The same certainly could not be said for the room in which Draco was currently sat. Hemlock's sitting room struck the same balance between opulent and unadorned as the man himself. There were no superfluous trinkets, no useless, ancient heirlooms, and no depressing portraits of long-dead ancestors who had disconcerting views about marrying cousins.

Instead, Draco was surrounded by sleek lines, rich fabrics and hardwood. The only decorative pieces were a beautiful chess set mid-game by an enchanted window, a crystal decanter – filled with amber liquor – and a pair of matching glasses. And books. Draco couldn't have said that the bookcases lined the walls, as it seemed, more accurately, that the bookcases _were_ the walls.

It was all so effortless. Draco felt his world tilt a little more on its axis.

Finally, everyone was stood or sat with a hot drink before them. Severus and the acerbic woman were sat on conjured straight-backed chairs across from where Draco, Luna and Harry were sat on a sleek but comfortable couch. Lloyd Evans had hoisted himself up to sit atop a table.

"So, are you an actual _doctor_ doctor? Or are you a mediwizard?" asked Harry, after the quick introductions.

"Both," said Hemlock as he sank into a chair. "I trained as a mediwizard in France and got my muggle doctorate in Germany. That's where I ran into our delightful Sandra."

Draco had to wonder if it was possible to swagger while sitting. Possible or not, Hemlock managed it.

Lloyd, his hand curled around a cup of tea so strong one could stand a wand in it, spoke up. "Hemlock's our healer, historian and head of magical intelligence here in our happy family. Been with us for about ten years. Kicked up a right stink at the start with the anti-purists among us at the time, but you can't really hold a grudge over someone's blood after they've worked so hard to keep your own on the inside of your skin. He's been a proper Godsend to us lot and fixed us all up at some point."

Despite everything that had happened over the last days, Draco felt a small surge of satisfaction that the impressive man was a pure-blood. There was something behind the feeling that he couldn't quite put a name to, a sort of hopefulness that he didn't understand.

Hemlock smiled. "I've always found it best to be indispensable, particularly when surrounded by those who would so eagerly try to dispose of one." He tipped a wink at nobody in general and took a sip from his mug.

"Are you a healer too, Dr. Helbig?" Harry asked, his voice polite but strained. Draco felt a pang of sympathy, knowing the man was stalling for time.

"I am not," was the woman's clipped reply. Draco wondered if she was pissed about something or if her voice always sounded so terse. After an expectant pause, the woman seemed to realise that more was called for. "I have two doctorates," she continued. "The first in electrical engineering and the second in strategic intelligence."

Draco was not so ensconced in wizarding culture to not know that was impressive. The woman only seemed to be about Severus' age.

"You're very clever," Luna said, airily. It didn't sound like a compliment or flattering small talk, but a statement of fact.

"Indeed," was the woman's terse reply, but she said nothing else. The awkward silence which followed signified the end of Harry's stalling, and everyone in the room seemed to look to the proverbial elephant in the room at the same time.

On the coffee table around which they all sat, was the now-enlarged pensieve. Harry looked extremely uncomfortable and Draco wondered if he should offer some kind of reassurance. Luna was a step ahead of him, however. She patted Harry on a bony knee and whispered something heartening that made him relax ever so slightly.

"Now," said Hemlock, after a moment. "If you're sure about this, Harry, then Sandra, Lloyd and myself will view your memories while you, Severus and your friends enjoy as many of these sandwiches as you can manage. Then, I think it best if you and I take a moment to see to your health, yes?"

Harry's nod was small and unsure. He really was looking dreadful, Draco thought, and he realised with a dazed sort of amazement that it had been about this time yesterday that he, Harry, Luna and Severus had been eating chips in the Hogwarts infirmary. It seemed insane when he thought of it in such terms. So much had happened. His world had shifted so monumentally in such a short space of time, and now he was sat drinking Earl Grey in the same room as muggles, purebloods and a Potter!

It was only when some of his hot tea spilled onto his hand and burned him that Draco realised his hands were shaking. He placed the cup and saucer onto a side-table, hoping that nobody would notice. He turned his attention back to Potter, who was speaking so tiredly that his voice seemed somehow muted.

"I'm probably about to sound really rude," said Harry, "but can we maybe just do this? It's been a really, _really_ long day and I don't think I've got much more in me."

Hemlock considered the frail-looking young man., cocking his head to the side as he did so. "Of course, Harry. But if you'd rather delay this until you have had a little time to rest and heal, then that is more than acceptable. Indeed, I must stress again that you should not feel forced to do this at all." There was no levity in the man's voice now. He was looking at Harry with such open concern that Draco knew that the healer must have inferred at least some of what Harry had been through.

Harry looked like he was considering the reprieve, but he quickly shook his head. "No," he said. "I can't say I'm thrilled about this, but it'll be quicker and easier. Besides, Snape says you're our best shot at ending this madness. I think you need to see."

Draco couldn't imagine what it had taken to make that decision, but found himself feeling rather impressed. A glance across the room told Draco that his godfather shared his feeling. The man was looking at Harry Potter with an unusual expression of pride and an odd sort of consideration that Draco couldn't define.

After one last concerned look, Hemlock nodded and turned to his colleagues who joined him at the table. A breath later and three heads were in the memories.

Given the fact that he had once used a Time Turner to literally insert more hours into a day, it was rather a bold claim for Harry to assert that this had been the longest day of his life. Yet the time that Hemlock, Sandra and Lloyd spent in the pensieve made the rest of the day seem like it had passed in a heartbeat.

The sandwich and mug of rich, black coffee mocked him. He could use the caffeine, and he was hungry. Hell, he was fucking famished at this stage – that breakfast of soup seemed to exist in a different era – but his throat was tightly closed and he couldn't imagine being able to eat or drink a thing. As he looked around the room he saw that his companions seemed to be avoiding their own plates and mugs, too. Still, Harry clutched the plate tightly. He might not be able to eat it yet, but he wouldn't let it go to waste.

Nobody broke the tense silence.

Harry's exhaustion was marrow-biting. He longed for the delicious weight of Professor Snape's duvet and the lulling susurration of snores. He longed for his mind to be quiet and to not feel like there was glass in his veins. He wished desperately that he would not have to have the conversation that waited on the other end of his memories.

Harry glanced at Snape and found the man's eyes already on him. His gaze was watchful and concerned, but not pitying. Harry was glad of that. He had a feeling that he was about to get a gutful of pity and he really wasn't up for it.

At last, the three heads emerged from the pool of memories and Harry turned to read their faces. Yes. There it was. Pity. A glut of it. Horror too, and a not inconsiderable amount of disgust. For what they saw, he wondered, or for him? He had expected it, but it still made his nerves crawl and his skin burn.

Sandra Helbig calmly stood and exited the room. A few moments later, Harry heard quiet retching from a nearby bathroom.

Hemlock Roscoe ran a hand back through his too-perfect hair and then covered his eyes, as though he could block out what they had already seen.

Lloyd Evans, eyes streaming with tears, walked across the room and punched Severus Snape right in the face. The potions master made no move to protect himself. He took the blow and fell against the table, scattering the chess pieces everywhere.

Harry and Draco were on their feet instantaneously, but Luna was even faster. "No," she said, stepping in front of the prone professor as Harry's cousin drew his fist back again.

"Move, girl!" growled Lloyd, but Luna held still.

"No," she repeated. "Hurting doesn't hurt less when it's always. A fist won't help the hurt but hurt it harder. It wasn't his fault and he's helping now."

Draco and Harry moved to stand either side of Luna and Lloyd lowered his fist. The anger was slowly draining from his face anyway, so perhaps he would have run out of steam without Luna's encouragement.

Harry was just about to check on the potions master when he found himself enveloped in a hug. Lloyd Evans' arms pulled him into a firm embrace and the man cried into Harry's hair for a moment.

Harry stiffened.

It didn't matter that the man was apparently family. It made it worse.

Lloyd must have felt his cousin's reaction to his touch because he quickly stepped back and away, releasing Harry as though burned. "Fuck! Bollocks! Sorry! I didn't… Fuck. Sorry, Harry!"

Harry closed his eyes and tried to breathe. His body seemed as locked up as it ever had when under a Petrificus Totalus, but after a few long moments, he calmed himself and nodded to Lloyd that he was okay.

Draco was not on the same page. He was livid. "That's twice, muggle," he spat. "Touch my godfather again and I'll Imperio you until you shove that fist far enough down your throat that you choke on your own fucking elbow."

Lloyd studied the blond for a moment, but finally nodded once to acknowledge Draco's warning.

Harry paused to check that the fists and insults were done flying and finally turned to help Snape. The punch had been a solid one, and a line of blood was trailing from the man's left nostril.

Harry winced; Snape could ill afford another break to his already crooked nose. "Here," he said, raising his hand despite the lack of a wand. "Let me help you with that. Episkey."

At any other time, Harry might have paused to consider what he was doing trying to wandlessly heal his teacher while a mediwizard sat not six feet away, but right now he was tired and he had used the spell plenty of times on the quidditch field; bludgers and broken noses went hand in hand. Snape was hurt. Harry could help.

The rush that flowed through Harry's body was an almost tidal thing. His magic felt like a tsunami roaring through him. He had never felt anything quite like it and when the wave passed and the rush ebbed, Harry felt what energy he had had left begin to crash.

Snape grunted as his nose cracked into place, and then his eyes widened as it cracked again and again. Harry watched in horror as the man's body began to twitch and jerk. The man juddered like a marionette under Crucio, and then he crumpled to the floor, panting harshly.

Harry slumped, too. Suddenly, it seemed like standing up would require more energy than was surely possible. As he sagged, he felt Lloyd's arms again, but this time they were steadying and catching, instead of embracing. Harry still didn't like it and he attempted to shrug the man off, but couldn't even manage to twitch his shoulder.

"Merlin's body!" gasped Draco from somewhere miles away. "What did you _do_!?"

With the last of his energy, Harry managed to lift heavy-lidded eyes to examine Snape, fearing what he would see.

A few feet away, Severus Snape was curled in on himself. His hands were cupped just a few inches in front of his face, as though he had frozen in the act of lowering them. Draco Malfoy was bent with a hand on the man's shoulder, also looking as though he was in the midst of a game of statues and the music had just stopped.

Harry could not see Snape's face as his hands were in the way. Slowly, so slowly that Harry began to be sure he would not be able to keep his eyes open long enough to learn what damage he had evidently caused, Snape lowered his hands.

It immediately became clear what had frozen Draco.

Snape's nose, the one that might have been referred to as regal or Roman by some, or as a beak by others (most of them Gryffindors) was fixed. Harry had not just popped the most recent break back into place, however. With his Episkey, is was evident that Harry had corrected every break Snape had ever suffered. Now, while Snape's nose was still hooked and perhaps on the large side, it suited the man's face far better and was, beyond a doubt, completely healed.

Harry Potter had just given Severus Snape a magical nose-job.

With the quietest snort of laughter, Harry passed out once again. He did not notice that Snape only had eyes for his left forearm.

Severus Snape been caught completely off-guard by Harry's healing charm. So much for the reflexes he'd honed over decades. The little thrill of surprise passed into paleness as a much rather thrill of magic washed through him. It began at his nose, but flowed over his entire body. For a handful of seconds, there had been the pain that usually came with that particular healing spell, but it was almost everywhere.

Then, the magic ceased and Severus felt… _marvellous_. The sciatic twinge that so often pained his back and legs – caused by years of stooping over cauldrons – had vanished. The constant burning that too many Cruciatus curses had left scorched into his veins – gone. Aches and pains that Severus was so used to enduring that he had learned to ignore them completely, were noticed now only for their sudden and miraculous departure. He realised that his hearing was better, too. Over the years, one too many exploding cauldrons had left him with a slight ring of tinnitus which he hadn't even been aware of until it suddenly, blessedly, stopped.

And the ubiquitous, eroding drumbeat of pain which had started back up again at the end of the Triwizard Tournament…

Severus slipped the cufflink from his shirtsleeve and pulled back both it and the arm of his robes. With shaking hands, Severus Snape bared his left arm and gazed at it with an almost exultant expression of wonder for several seconds.

Gone. The Dark Mark was gone. The symbol of his stupidity, the stain of his enslavement, the reminder of almost every evil he had ever endured… gone!

Severus was free. Harry Potter had released him.

Simultaneous gasps of realisation from around the room broke Severus' reverie. He took a deep, shuddering breath – thinking even his lungs seemed liberated – and raised his eyes just in time to see Harry's face turn grey and his green eyes lose what little light had been left in them as they rolled back in the boy's emaciated skull.

Something in the way the young man's body thudded to the floor reminded Severus of a bundle of twigs being dropped into a hearth. There was not enough meat on the boy to reduce the impact with a hint of bounce or softness. It was too reminiscent of dusty skeleton crumbling from an open crypt: all dead weight and dry bones.

A breath of shocked silence, and then it seemed like everyone in the room moved into action at the same time. Evans and Roscoe joined Severus in casting diagnostic spells. Lovegood conjured a pillow to put under the boy's head and Draco waved his wand at the furniture to give them all space.

Sandra, who had just returned, ran to a small panel near the door. She pressed a button and started shouting to a voice on the other end to prep the medibay.

In the next breath, Harry was being levitated down the white corridors of Tŷ Cysgod by Lloyd Evans, while Hemlock Roscoe waved his wand and frowned over whatever his diagnosis spells were telling him.

 **A/N** – **Just a note to say thank you for so many follows, favourites and reviews! It really has helped to keep me motivated and I'm very grateful. I did have one rather angry commenter who stated they had "to wonder about someone who romanticises abuse** – **even very fake abuse". The same commenter didn't like the cliched "Snape feels sorry for Harry" trope, and decided at chapter 3 to "leave this Potter pity party." I hope you found what you were looking for elsewhere, dear anonymous reviewer. I'm just writing what I want to; that's my choice. I hope your own choices lead to a happy place.**

 **I'm almost caught up to myself now, at which stage updates will slow down a little. I'd love to hear if there's anything you would really love/hate to see in this. I have ideas of the overall narrative, but I'm happy to consider requests! I totally reserve the right to say nope though!**

 **Elle x**


	15. Chapter 15 - Scars

Severus Snape wished for the pain he had lost. He wished for his arm to throb and his nerves to burn. He longed for his ugly, crooked nose back and for the ache in his lower back to beat like a drum up his spine and down his legs. He wished for it more than he wished that Harry was not such an impulsive bloody fool.

With his blasé act of kindness, Harry Potter had managed to utterly drain himself of magic. Under normal circumstances, it would simply recharge with rest, care and time. Magical exhaustion was wearying, and left one feeling empty and incomplete, but it wasn't usually coupled with the physical condition Harry had already been in. True, the lad had received some healing at Hogwarts, and Severus himself had offered him a few vials of potions he had at his safehouse. But the maladies Harry had been suffering with on the train had been extensive. His injuries and malnourishment needed more care than an hour or two in a school hospital wing and what amounted to over-the-counter potions. The boy's need for healing had been one of the reasons Severus had been willing to finally throw his lot in with The Shade – a group which, until now, Severus had always considered not so much a last resort, but certainly a last line of defence.

Now, the facilities at The Shade were the only thing which stood between Harry and death.

Harry's body was forcing rest on the boy. The "medibay" in Tŷ Cysgod was well-equipped, and Hemlock Roscoe was perhaps one of the best medical minds of an age,

So, rest and care, they could offer Harry. But they were out of time.

On the hospital bed beside which Severus Snape sat, Harry groaned, even in his unconsciousness. Blood ran down the man's face and pooled in his ears. It filled a crease at the boy's neck and slipped sideways. It matted his hair. The pillow under his head remained crisp and white, charmed not to stain or soil, Severus supposed.

Soon after Harry had depleted himself, his curse scar had started to bleed and he had begun to writhe without waking. Apparently, all this time, Harry's magic had been acting as a kind of instinctual buffer against the scar's strange link to the Dark Lord, and now that the magic was gone, so was what protection Harry had had.

No wonder the boy had struggled to learn occlumency for so long, Severus thought to himself. He'd been doing a form of it for years without even knowing. Asking him to learn something he had been doing instinctively (albeit less effectively) for years was akin to asking an untrained but fairly decent artist to take a class and start again with painting by numbers.

Severus' muggle grandmother, a rather painfully religious woman from whom Tobias Snape had no doubt learned "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", had once told Severus a story of her time in a Catholic school run by nuns. At the time, left-handedness was still punished by a sharp caning across the back of the "evil" hand. Children there had quickly retrained themselves to write "as God intended". This was typical of one of Nana Snape's stories.

Severus had been lashing at Harry's occlumency skills ever since that first lesson, never realising that - according to Roscoe – a sizeable amount of magic was already being channelled into a natural occlusion of the scar bond.

Without that barrier, the scar had started to bleed.

And then it had started to spread.

The top tip of the bolt now extended up into Harry's hair. The bottom line of the lightning bolt had first bisected his eyebrow. Then it cut through his eyelid until it had split like the skin of a rotting fruit.

Then it took Harry's right eye.

According to Hemlock, if it continued to progress at its current rate, the scar would cut down through Harry's throat in just under an hour's time. Roscoe had applied spells and charms and salves in the hope of stymieing the progress, all to no avail. The only thing that would stop the curse was Harry's magic's innate ability to block it, and that magic – given the man's condition – would take _weeks_ to be back to its usual strength.

Severus Snape longed for the pain he knew so well. It hurt less than this.

The first thing Harry knew when he woke was pain. His head seemed to be made of broken glass which shattered further with every breath. The second thing he knew was that the rest of his body felt cold and oddly empty.

He blinked, and tried to look around, but the pain stopped him. For some reason, his vision was oddly narrowed on his right side, but he could still see the blurry outlines of people around his bed. Even without his glasses and the black shadow covering half his vision, he could see enough to make out Snape sat beside his bed. The paler blurs of Draco and Luna stood behind the man. Harry couldn't see Dr. Helbig, but Lloyd Evans was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed and the tall, tanned blur of Hemlock Roscoe was fidgeting with some medical gadgets nearby.

Their faces and the heavy silence of waiting told Harry all he needed to know.

"How long do I have?" he croaked, startling the odd vigil at his bedside.

There was a brief silence, and for a second he thought they might not be honest with him. He should have known that he'd be able to rely on Snape to offer the unvarnished truth.

"Not long, Harry," the man said. His voice was gentler than Harry had ever heard it.

Luna unfolded Harry's glasses and placed them on his face, curling the wire arms behind his ears with a tender, sad smile. Harry noticed her fingers were bloody when she drew her hands away.

Harry didn't feel like he had the breath to sigh. He was so tired. So much for taking on the Light and Dark. So much for The Shade. So much for carving out a life at the end of it all. So much for that tiniest seed of blossoming something that he'd been ignoring and denying and cherishing all at the same time.

Yesterday, he'd been ready to die.

Harry looked at Snape. The man's black eyes were trained on him with their usual intensity and something rawer. Harry swallowed hard.

"Did I hurt you?" Harry asked Snape. The image of Snape's twitching and the sound of cracking was still fresh in his mind.

A long blink hid Snape's eyes for a time. Then his gaze returned and the man kept it trained on Harry, though he turned his head to the side in a way that indicated he was addressing the others in the room. "Give us a moment," he commanded.

Hemlock looked apologetic, but shook his head. "The machines need tending, I'm afraid. They are built to work with magic, though, so I shan't be offended if you cast a silencing charm. I'll turn away." The man winked, and did just that. After a brief hesitation, Draco, Luna and Lloyd shuffled out of the room.

Snape cast the silencing charm and leaned closer to the hospital bed.

"You're lying in a hospital bed, Harry, and you're asking if I'm hurt. You really are the most Gryffindor young man I have ever had the misfortune to meet."

Harry wasn't to be diverted. He was already feeling tired and he had things to say before the darkness spread. Seeing that his fear hadn't been assuaged, Snape pulled back the sleeve of his left arm and held it so that Harry could see the unmarred skin.

"You have freed me," Snape said, simply.

 _Bloody hell_. The voice in the back of Harry's mind sounded a lot like Ron, and he felt a pang of sadness that that last time he'd seen the boy, they'd ended on a sour note. Harry looked away from Snape's arm and met his eyes again. "I'm glad something good came from all this, at least." He smiled.

Snape considered him, and Harry could sense that the man was building up to saying something, but he seemed hesitant. There was something Harry wanted to say, too: something he'd been meaning to say to the man for a while.

"Sir, I'm sorry."

Snape blinked and looked surprised, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry for my dad. I'm sorry I didn't try harder at Occlumency. I'm sorry I never thanked you for all the times you saved my life, and I am _so_ sorry that I looked into your pensieve."

Harry felt an exhausted sort of wonder at the sadness on his potions professor's face.

"Harry…" The man hesitated. "There is something I feel I should tell you, but I fear that the confession may cause you more pain. However, I once swore to myself – swore on the love I held for someone very dear to me – that I would tell you this. Had I sworn on anything less…" Snape's eyes were intense. He seemed to fight a quiet war within himself, but at last he spoke again. "Harry, I –"

Snape's voice had failed him again, but Harry found that he already knew what the man was struggling so hard to say.

"It's okay, sir. I know," Harry whispered. Weak as a new kit, he shuffled his hand and pawed frailly at the back of Snape's arm, which the older man had rested on the bed after showing Harry the unmarred flesh.

Though Snape took Harry's hand to offer comfort, his expression suggested that he doubted Harry's claim. Harry dug for a few more moments of strength. It was getting darker, and whatever they had given him to stave off the pain in his head and face had evidently started to wear off.

"I figured out how Vold-" A flare of excruciating pain stopped Harry from uttering the name. Snape half stood and Harry saw Hemlock fidgeting urgently with one of the machines to Harry's side, and soon the pain subsided under wash of grey. Before either of the other men in the room could ask pointless questions, Harry continued. "I know how Tom got the prophecy, and I know you and my mum were mates. I figured it out a few months ago."

Snape slumped back into his seat and gazed at Harry with a not inconsiderable amount of surprise.

Harry felt another pang of regret that he would never get to tell anyone that he had seen the great and stoic Severus Snape with his mouth hanging agape. It was a cruel world indeed. At length, the potions master gathered his wits enough to speak again.

"You already know," he said, voice oddly blank, "yet these last days you've placed trust in me, planned to fight alongside me… You should despise me for what I've done!"

Harry closed his eyes to blink, but found that he could not open them again once they were shut. Or perhaps the world had faded to black.

"We both put our faith in the wrong masters, sir. Can't blame you for that. I don't hate you. You've hated yourself enough."

Harry heard a shaky exhale which might have been a sob, though Harry doubted it. The pain was a foggy shore in a distant land now. The regret that his fight was over was a little closer. Regret at other things was much closer, but none so near as to hurt.

"Harry?"

It was almost peaceful.

"Harry, no."

Snape's voice was the second-to last thing Harry heard before he died. It was a good voice to die to.

The very last was the sound of a slamming door and a German woman shouting something with sounded a lot like "bubble".

Strange, but in the end, Harry was too far gone to think on it.

His thumb twitched and brushed over Severus Snape's long, warm fingers.

And then he was gone.


	16. Chapter 16 - A Breath in a Vacuum

A/N - Hi all. I'm posting from my phone tonight, due to a buggered laptop. Apologies for any weird formatting. x

There were shadows.

There were voices.

They were familiar.

Harry opened his eyes and

*x*x*

there was light.

There was silence.

Harry blinked and

*x*x*

woke up in what appeared to be either a large, cluttered garage space or a very small, cluttered warehouse space. Despite said clutter, the space seemed clean, almost sterile. The walls looked to be grey concrete, and were littered with half-full shelves. The ceiling was flat and there were stark, unshaded lights. He thought the gurney beneath him might be the same, but couldn't really be sure. He was still hooked up to myriad drips and machines, though there were fewer than there had been before he had…

Died. He had died. Yet here he was.

There was pain. His face ached like a rotten tooth and the right side of his vision was still black. His body felt diluted, like a teabag which had been dipped one time too many. There was something wrapped around his face which reeked with the lemony odour of dittany.

And there was Snape. For the second time, Harry witnessed the man asleep and snoring in a chair beside his bed. The man looked different. Gone were many of the lines around his eyes; smoothed away was the crease caused by a semi-permanent scowl. The man's lips were just thin now, not a knife-slash of scorn in an ugly face. And, of course, his nose was unmarred. For the first time, Snape looked like the thirty-six-year-old man he was.

That wasn't to say that he looked particularly good right then. In fact, the man looked fairly exhausted. He was even paler than usual and there was a greyness to his complexion which hadn't been there when they'd last spoken. When had that been, Harry wondered, and where were they now?

Why am I still alive? Harry asked himself. He was sure he had died. In some foggy almost-memory, he almost thought he even remembered being dead, but that was probably silly. Whatever had happened, Harry felt sure that the only reason he was still breathing was because of the softly snoring Snape.

Harry wanted answers, but not enough to wake the shattered-looking man beside him. Besides, sleep was calling again. Before he let it claim him, Harry extended his arm. It trembled and shook as he reached out, and by the time he was holding Snape's hand again, Harry was exhausted. But he wanted the man to know he'd woken up. That was all.

Harry closed his eyes and slept some more.

*x*x*

A delicious scent roused him again, several hours later, and Harry's eyes fluttered open to see Snape carrying a tray towards him.

"Awake at last, Mr Potter. Ever the lazy Gryffindor, I see." The words, so reminiscent of ones Snape might have said before all of this, were spoken in a tone that he most certainly never would have used. The man was making in actual bloody joke.

Harry smiled, or tried to, but the movement sent a wave of pain through the right side of his face. He winced and Snape set the tray down.

Snape pushed a few buttons and the bed started to make a mechanical whirring sound. Harry felt his legs being lowered while his back was raised, and in a matter of moments the bed had become a high-backed chair.

"Wicked!" wheezed Harry, and then he flinched at the sound of his own voice. He sounded weak and scratchy, as though he hadn't spoken in a month. He attempted to clear his throat and tried again. "I'm not dead," he said.

Snape raised an eyebrow and looked like he was fighting the urge to roll his eyes. "Indeed," he drawled.

Harry wanted to ask questions, but there was some kind of savoury-smelling broth and a pot of steaming tea on the tray. His stomach rumbled and he blushed.

Without any scathing comments, Snape moved the high-backed chair closer, sat down, and passed one of the bowls to Harry. Harry lifted his arms to take it, but his hands were still weak and trembling. Snape pulled the bowl back before Harry could take it and scald himself with the hot contents.

Harry flushed darker. It took almost all he had to stifle a whimper as the food was withheld.

"Hush," said Snape quietly, gently. Then the man dipped a spoon into Harry's bowl, lifted out some of the broth, went as far as to blow a wisp of steam from the spoonful, and then raised it to Harry's lips.

Harry felt his left eye widen in a mixture of shock and alarm. The right side of his face was too tight and sore to do the same. His mouth was slack in his surprise, but not enough for the spoon to offer up its contents.

Professor Snape was trying to spoon-feed him. Bloody hell. Harry stared at the man, dumbfounded, but Snape just continued to wait.

After a long moment of holding the spoon and waiting, Snape finally gave into the impulse to roll his dark eyes. "Should I make aeroplane noises, Harry? Or perhaps "Here comes the Hogwarts Express"? When Draco was a bairn, he rather preferred the latter."

Harry was suddenly overcome by an image of Snape spoon-feeding a squalling, platinum-haired toddler, while making "choo choo" noises. The thought was both hilarious and disconcerting in equal measure.

Harry blinked himself out of his startled daze, sighed the smallest whisper of a laugh, and sipped from the spoon before him. It was hot and delicious and Harry was sure he had never tasted anything better, despite the very faint aftertaste which told him the soup was laced with at least a nutrient potion and probably a blood-replenishing draught, too.

A thin line of the soup ran down Harry's chin and he felt his blush - which had been fading - darken and spread. He tried to turn his head away to hide his mortification; he tried to raise a trembling hand to wipe away the mess he had made, but Snape placed a gentle hand on the sore side of his face and turned him back. Without comment or ridicule, he simply cleaned Harry's chin with a tissue and then dipped the spoon again.

This time, Harry drank the broth with less delay. Snape's lips curved in such a bare hint of a smile that Harry couldn't be sure if he was even really seeing it.

When the bowl was gone, Snape offered Harry a sip of sweet, hot tea before finally eating his own bowl of soup far more efficiently and quickly than Harry had managed. Harry watched the man's movements from beneath a heavy eyelid. He tried to stay awake; he had so many questions; there was so much to discuss. However, his stomach was full and warm and his pain had drifted into the background again – perhaps the broth had been laced with more than he'd thought.

"Sleep, Harry," lulled Snape from beside him.

"But we need to talk," Harry murmured.

"Soon, Harry, but not yet. Hush now."

Harry heard a soft mechanical whirring and felt the chair begin to turn back into a bed. Before the process had finished, he was asleep again.

*x*x*

Those first three days passed in a cycle of sleep, food, tea and a couple of very awkward incidents involving a bedpan and banishing spells. Sometimes, Harry asked Snape questions or tried to begin discussing the plans they so desperately needed to make. Each time, Snape hushed him and said they would talk when he was stronger.

Harry was too relieved at the reprieve to argue. Honestly, it was nice to just have the time to breathe.

He ate some more, able to feed himself after the first couple of days. He slept some more. He enjoyed the silence.

*x*x*

Thanks to whatever Snape was lacing the food with, coupled with the IVs to which Harry remained attached most of the time, by the fourth day, Harry was able to shuffle to the bathroom by himself. He took the opportunity, thrilled to be rid of the embarrassment of the bedpan.

While washing his hands after using the simple facilities, Harry had caught sight of himself in a small mirror above the sink. He looked frightful. His hair was matted and his face was as grey as the unpainted walls.

Snape had warned him about his eye before letting him near a mirror, of course, but knowing and seeing the damage for himself were two different things. His right eyelid had been taped shut. The lid was flat and sunken. A single green eye stared back at him from the other side of his scarred, grey face.

Harry couldn't stop a soft sob. Silly really, he thought. So much had happened to him and he'd survived with just a few new scars and one less eye… Others had it worse and he had far bigger things to worry about. Still…

"Harry?" Snape had been waiting outside the bathroom door, offering Harry as much privacy as he could while still being close enough to help should he be needed. He opened the door and moved to Harry's side at the sound of the boy's grief.

"It's nothing," said Harry. He reached for the soap to wash his hands and misjudged the distance. The soap tray, soap and washcloth all clattered to the floor.

Harry felt a bubble of frustration and sorrow well up in his chest. He closed his hands into fists, but didn't yet have the strength to clench them. Another sob escaped him, this one louder, and he squeezed his remaining eye closed to block out the sight of his haggard and incomplete reflection.

"I'm fine," he choked through sobs.

"I doubt that," said Snape. The words were spoken in the same soft and calming voice that the man had been using since Harry had woken.

"Everyone used to say I had my mother's eyes," Harry whispered. "They're all I've ever had of hers." He opened the remaining eye and felt tears fall. They seeped slowly from the closed socket, dampening his long, dark lashes and plastering them to his cheek as they fell.

He turned half a questioning gaze on Snape.

Snape swallowed back a sudden and unprecedented need to join the broken boy in his tears. "The lacrimal sac is still attached," said Snape, only a little gruffly. "You can still cry."

Harry blinked up at the man who sounded so matter-of-factly like a textbook that Harry felt the unreasonable and rather hysterical urge to giggle. The urge passed quickly.

"Oh," Harry said, his voice as tired as he felt again. "Great."

Snape winced and wondered, not for the first time, what he had been thinking when he had decided that he should be the one to accompany Harry into the healing isolation of the Vacuum Sanctum.

He sighed at the sad exhaustion on the young man's face and helped him back to bed.


	17. Chapter 17 - Vacuum Sanctum

On the fifth day, Harry knew it was time to talk. He was still tired, still weak, but his scar was healing and his hands only trembled a little. The food and the potions, the sleep and the silence had all gone a long way to helping him feel less like a limping lamb trying to outrun the wolves.

He looked around the room that had been his sanctuary since he'd woken that first day. Snape had used his magic to make the space slightly less desolate than it had seemed back then, but it was still minimalistic. The walls were the grey of downy feathers instead of the grey of garages. There were carpets on the stone floor and the naked lightbulb was less glaring behind a lampshade. Snape had transfigured a bucket into a bed, and now both that one and Harry's were pushed up against the back wall of the room, separated by a few feet. The high-backed chair had been turned into a large and comfortable settee which was at the foot of the beds, and helped divide the room into two spaces – one for sleeping, one for living. Over in the corner, a table and two chairs sat beside the shelves, which had also been transfigured into something more befitting a living space than a storage locker.

There were no flourishes, but it was clean and comfortable.

As was Harry.

Snape's magic had also made the functional but rather dismal bathroom into a much nicer space. Harry had only been up to taking a proper bath last night. Until then, Snape had been casting cleaning charms and providing him with a bowl of hot, sudsy water and a flannel. But last night Harry had run a bath and Snape had added a few different potions into the mix, which had added foamy bubbles and the smell of almonds. They also healed more of his damaged body and eased the lingering soreness.

As Harry had lowered himself into the water, he breathed a sigh of relief and then took a deep lungful of the almond-scented steam. Perhaps one of Snape's potions was responsible; perhaps it was the feeling of finally bathing properly in a safe, silent space, his stomach full and his Potions Professor ready to just be there if needed. Whatever the reason, after a few moments in the hot, medicated water, the tears had started – great wracking sobs like those he had cried in the shower after sharing his pensieve memories.

Snape hadn't come to check on him, and for that Harry was grateful. The man seemed to have understood that the crying was as much a part of Harry's cleansing as the soap and hot water were.

He cried and washed. He scrubbed hard and deep. He soaped his hair twice and used a bristly brush on his fingernails and toenails. He brushed his teeth and tongue until it felt like his very lungs must be minty-fresh. Very gently, he probed his anus with a soapy finger and washed his genitals. It felt like taking ownership over something that had been lost to him for a long time.

Harry had emerged from that bathroom cleaner than he had felt in forever. Snape had been sat by the table. The man had a book open in front of him, but Harry suspected he hadn't been reading it. Snape didn't ask Harry if he was all right, nor did he mention the sobbing or the inordinately long time he had spent bathing. Snape simply arched his customary questioning eyebrow and Harry offered him a small smile of reassurance and thanks before climbing into his bed, which had been dressed with clean sheets.

That night, he had dreamed that he was in a garden, digging up vegetables that he planned to use in some dish or another. It was a nice day and the sun was warm on his shoulders. He could hear a song playing from a nearby radio. An oldie. Sittin' on the dock of the Bay. He knew some of the words, half-learned through a cupboard door and half-forgotten over the years. He sang along. A familiar voice called out, offering him the choice between a cold butterbeer or an even colder can of Coke. In the dream, Harry had smiled and turned.

That was it. That was the entire dream. Harry thought it might be the best dream he had ever had.

And now it was the fifth day and Harry was ready.

He got to his feet and slowly moved towards a door at the far end of the space he'd inhabited for the last days. It was where Snape always went to retrieve their food and cups of tea, so Harry was unsurprised to find himself in a small kitchen area. There was little to see other than Snape waiting for a kettle to boil while periodically glancing at a red light set into the wall above a huge white bubble of some kind of plastic, which took up most of the space in the room.

At Harry's arrival, the potions master nodded, as though completely unsurprised to see him on his feet and wandering around.

"I'm ready to talk," said Harry.

The kettle began to bubble and Snape nodded towards the main room.

"Go and take a seat," Snape said. "I'll bring this out and we can have this discussion over tea and breakfast."

Harry nodded and was about to turn when his curiosity got the better of him. He gestured to the plastic dome and asked, "What's that?"

Snape poured boiling water into the teapot and set two empty cups onto the same tray. "That is best explained after a few other things. For now, suffice it to say it is a sort of post box. Sandra and the others will be using it to send us our supplies until your magic is stable enough to permit our leaving this place."

Harry figured that was the best he could hope to get at the moment, so he returned to what he supposed was the living room, and sat down at the small table. In short order, Snape joined him and poured out the tea.

Once they had both buttered and eaten a slice of toast, Snape considered Harry carefully.

Harry sipped his tea and waited, trying his best to look ready for whatever this discussion might entail.

"You may call me Severus," said the man at last.

Harry choked on the sip of tea he had been taking. He had not been ready for that. He spluttered a little into the back of his hand, and scowled softly when he saw the man smirking at his reaction. Fighting a blush, Harry tried for nonchalance – an almost impossible feat after coughing up a lungful of Twinings. "Okay, S-everus." Damn it.

Sn- Severus' lips crooked further, but he didn't poke at Harry's dented pride.

Hoping to win back a little decorum, Harry waited for the man to talk. He'd already asked his biggest question when they were in the kitchen, after all. There was more to discuss, of course, but where they were was a good enough start.

Snape buttered more toast and, instead of eating it, placed it on Harry's plate.

"Eat," said the man. "And don't interrupt."

He sounded so much like the git of old, that Harry almost answered back out of habit. He reigned in a cheeky retort at the last moment by taking a large bite of toast.

Severus nodded, took a sip of his tea and then began. "You cast your rather overenthusiastic Episkey eight days ago…"

Harry must have looked like he was about to interrupt, because Snape – Severus – levelled him with a warning look. Harry said nothing, but noted to himself that he must have been unconscious for three days before he had initially woken up in this room.

"Your new magic levels caused something to go wrong with the casting and you drained yourself. At the same time, you healed me of far more than a broken nose, as I'm sure you recall."

He didn't wait for a response. Harry sipped his tea.

"Just moments after your magic was depleted, your scar began to bleed heavily, and then it started to spread. Roscoe theorised that without your magic, the shields that you had raised against the scar faltered."

At that, Harry had to interrupt. "Shields? I haven't been casting any shields."

"Not consciously, no," answered Snape, frowning. "Roscoe believes it to be another of your instinctive abilities. Might I continue?"

Harry blushed and nodded.

"There was nothing we could do. The only magic capable of fighting the mark was your own. The time it would take to replenish was longer than you had left. The scar cut your throat. You were bleeding to death even as we talked that last time."

Harry waited. He wanted to ask questions, beg for answers, demand detail. But there was a strange look on Severus' face which made him pause. The man looked … sad. It was an odd thing to think that Severus Snape would be sad at the thought of Harry dying.

Snape seemed to rally and gather his usual calm. "It was only as your heart stopped that Sandra made a loud and dramatic entrance that any Gryffindor would be proud of. As far as I could tell, she had lost her mind, but as soon as she said the word "bubble", Roscoe had summoned a box of potions and was wheeling you down corridors at a run, all while I cast a Premere charm on your chest at intervals, hoping to keep what blood you had left pumping.

"We only had seconds, but Roscoe told me that this place is called the Vacuum Sanctum. It is a construct set within a complex system of rune-enchanted rings which, when turned create a sort of bubble in time.

Harry swallowed a mouthful of toast which had long ago lost any flavour or consistency. "So, what, we're living inside a massive time turner?"

Snape tilted his head to the side as he considered. Finally, he nodded. "Indeed."

Harry frowned and took another bite of toast as he thought. "How does it work?" he asked. "And how come I'm alive if I was already dead? And why-"

Severus held up an elegant hand. "One thing at a time Harry," he said.

Harry bit his lip, and nodded.

"Your first question I can't answer as I don't know how the Vacuum Sanctum works. Indeed, it was made clear to me that it might not work. As you could perhaps posit from the rather utilitarian appearance of the place on those first days, this element of the facility is new. It is also untested."

"Then why-" Harry tried to butt in, but Snape cut him off.

"Because it was your last and only chance at survival," the older man said plainly. "Because of the nature of time, once the rings of the Vacuum Sanctum revolve, those inside it exist slightly outside of time. Or inside it. By isolating ourselves from the temporal plane on which the curse was affecting you, we hoped to remove you from its grasp, if only for enough time to allow your magic to replenish. The first rotation of the rings creates a disparity ratio of roughly sixty to one."

Harry tried to assimilate the information. "So, for every hour in here…"

"A single minute passes outside the bubble, yes. However, a single rotation – the minimum possible for this facility – takes a day to complete in the outside world."

Harry considered. So, they'd be in here for sixty days, and still be back to the regular run of things by seven days ago, which would be tomorrow. Harry's brain hurt. He had never liked thinking about time magic, and now it seemed he was living inside the barmy stuff. He glanced at Severus and quirked his eyebrow – he had only ever been able to do that with his right brow, so the effect was possibly diminished and definitely uncomfortable. "You understood all of that when you "only had seconds" to get us here?"

Snape offered one of his almost smiles and repeated, "Indeed. Though the delivery system you noticed in the kitchen has allowed them to send more information since then."

Harry continued. "So, you got me here so you could have a crack at saving me while the scar was out of Voldie's reach, yeah?"

Snape took the opportunity to have some of his own tea, nodded, and then continued. "I pumped you full of blood replenishers – though not as many as I had expected to need. Your heart failed sooner that it would have, had you not already been so run down. I healed the scar as much as it's possible to ever heal, and then attached a potions drip. While doing these things, I also had to continue casting the charm to force your heart to beat at the recommended cardiopulmonary resuscitative rate of one hundred times per minute."

Harry paled and stared at the man through his remaining eye. "Bloody hell, Severus. How long did you keep that up?"

Severus looked slightly uncomfortable at Harry's evident wonder. "I am unsure. Several minutes the first time, though you went into arrest twice more that first night."

Harry thought back to how exhausted Severus had looked five days ago. Merlin, the man must have been near to collapsing himself after all that. All to keep him, Harry, alive. All on such a small hope. And if it hadn't worked, Snape would have been stuck in a time warp with his corpse for two months. The thought made Harry shudder.

"Fuck, Severus. I don't even know where to begin saying thank you. You didn't have to… You've never had to, but you keep saving my life."

Severus' only acknowledgment was a terse and embarrassed nod, followed by a sip of cooling tea.

Harry thought about what he had learned so far and something occurred to him. "Why was it you who saved me this time, though?" he asked. At Snape's frown he rushed to explain himself. "I'm really grateful it was and all! If I have to be locked in a time bubble with someone, you're a good choice. I was just thinking that you said Hemlock had the potions and he was the one wheeling me here. It sounded like he meant to do the doctoring. That being what he does, and all."

Snape was no longer frowning. Instead, Harry was astonished to see the tips of the man's ears were turning pink and there was the barest hint of colour to his pale cheeks. "We decided I was the better option," he muttered.

Harry could see there was a story there, but the ever-so-slight blush had him so surprised that he missed his chance to needle the man for whatever details had him embarrassed.

"Now that you are awake," Snape said, "we can use the next fifty-two days to prepare for what comes next."

Harry considered that information and then sat forward in his chair, suddenly excited. "But this is brilliant!" he said. "If we can get two months for the price of a single day, we could buy ourselves years of time! I could be trained up properly. You could…" Harry trailed off and his excitement waned. Snape was shaking his head and looking uncomfortable. "What?" asked Harry.

"Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that," Severus said. "Time turners allow a traveller to move backwards in short bursts, but the person's actions exist simultaneous to what has already occurred. Indeed, the very act of time-turning makes it so each temporal version of a traveller is always and was always in existence. What we are doing puts rather more strain on the temporal fabric, as we are manipulating not a person's place in time, but on time's very composition. Redressing the balance will not be as simple as flipping an hourglass back."

Harry missed Hermione. At the very least she'd have been able to offer him a spare quill and scrap of parchment to jot notes upon. "You lost me at "simple"," he confessed.

Severus allowed himself a genuine chuckle at that. It warmed his face and Harry felt his own lips quirk.

"So, we can't just keep the rune things turning and buy more time?" Harry asked. He thought he'd understood that much at least.

Snape nodded. "From what information they have sent, coupled with my own past reading and what I saw of the runes around the Vacuum, it seems that while the first "turn" creates the disparity ratio of sixty to one, an additional turn would be one-hundred-and-twenty to one. The third would be two-hundred-and-forty to one."

"So, in total, three days outside would add up to…" Harry waited for Severus to jump in, but the man smirked and took a deliberate sip of his tea. Harry scowled, but it was a simple enough sum. "Um, four-hundred-and-eighty days. Oh. Well, yeah, I guess I see the problem if you do a bunch of turns at a time, but why not take a day between turns?"

"I mentioned a moment ago about redressing the balance… though your eyes had glazed somewhat by then. In the most Hufflepuffian of terms, theories would suggest that the ratio will reverse when the Vacuum Sanctum's rings reset. After we leave, for every one day we spend in here, it will take the rings sixty to realign."

"And we have sixty days in here," said Harry, his eyes going wide as he did more mental arithmetic. "It'll take ten years before anyone can use it again!?"

Snape nodded.

"So... time-bubble-ex-machina is a one-time only offer?"

Snape raised an amused brow and nodded again.

"Well, balls."

Snape rolled his eyes and nodded one last time.

At that point, a chiming noise sounded from the kitchen.

*x*x*

The bubble that Severus had described as a "post-box" was full and the light above it was green. Apparently, the feature could be accessed from the inside every sixty hours, and from the outside every sixty minutes. Harry supposed he must have been unconscious for the other deliveries.

Snape spelled the contents out and various boxes and bags began unpacking themselves into the small kitchen space. The delivery seemed to consist largely of fresh foods, and Harry wondered whose sorry job it was to shop for and deliver two months' worth of food over the course of a single day. There also looked to be a bundle of new clothes, a selection of parchments and books and some muggle writing materials.

Severus placed a shrunken box of laundry and a few neatly-folded pages of note paper into the space – a report of some kind, Harry supposed – and soon the bubble sealed itself up again and the light above it turned red again.

"Here," said Severus, handing Harry a few books, a couple of the notebooks and some pens.

Harry looked through the books. They were more advanced than anything he had ever had to read before, but given how he had re-read every word of his school books over the summer three times, he was actually rather excited to have something new to learn. The notebook and pen were an added relief. So much had happened in such a short space of time, and – now that Harry's head wasn't spinning or his stomach empty – he longed to get his thoughts in order.

Without saying, they seemed to agree that further discussion could wait. Severus sat at one end of the couch with the bundled information that had just arrived, while Harry stacked his small pile of new books onto the shelves beside his bed. Then, he took a notebook and pen and sat on the other end of the couch.

The silence that ensued was a good one, Harry decided, as he settled down to write.


	18. Chapter 18 - Plans and PJs

Harry put down the ballpoint pen and stretched his fingers. His knuckles cracked pleasantly. He had filled several pages of his new notebook with questions, observations and even a few paragraphs of ramblings which read alarmingly like a diary – all about feelings and fears. The paragraphs nigh-on dripped with angst. It was a little embarrassing, really, but Harry supposed it was better to have it on paper instead of deep and barbed in the pit of his stomach.

While the task was cathartic, it had also proven useful in helping Harry put his wrackspurts in a row. On the last filled page of the notebook, he had channelled Hermione and written something of a timetable for the next fifty-two days.

Harry glanced across the couch to where Severus also seemed to be finishing up. He didn't want to disturb the man, so he let his mind wander and began to doodle on a fresh page.

The potions master, after he finished reading the papers that had come through the post box, had then spent time making notes in the margins. Once that was done, he had taken one of the notebooks for himself and started to write steadily. Harry had been intrigued, but not enough to turn from his own work. Now, however, something about the way the man leaned back from the page suggested he was coming to the end of his task. Sure enough, a few moments later the man finished with a flourish so practised that it could only be a signature, and then set down the pen he'd been using.

Harry nodded to the pile of papers. "Did they send anything that I should know?" he asked, assuming that the documents had been sent by The Shade.

Snape considered for only a moment before handing the original papers over. Harry took them gratefully; It wasn't often he asked for information and was given it.

"Your cousin sent them. There are lists of supplies and an audit of The Shade's affiliates and their particular skills. In addition to your cousin's notes, Roscoe has attached an exercise and nutrition regimen which will have you fit and strong in far less time than would be possible even under Poppy's care. He has provided a rather detailed timetable."

Harry bit his lip, irritated. "I wish I hadn't wasted the last hour drawing up my own version of a timetable, then. And here, I thought I was being all organised." He tutted again and then thumbed through a few of the papers Snape had handed him. Throughout them, Lloyd had referred to members of The Shade as "Shadows". The first time the term was used, Severus had written in the margin: "Ensure Evans expunges this appalling appellation from further communications. Imbecile."

Harry snorted caught Severus' eyes. "Shadows, eh?"

Snape rolled his eyes and stood up. "Dunderheaded dramatics which I've come to expect from Lloyd Evans. No doubt he thinks the term "cool" or "wicked" or whatever asinine term is currently in vogue."

Snape headed towards the kitchen and Harry stood to follow him, a small grin on his lips. Severus and slang were an amusing combination. Once in the small space, Snape began rummaging through the cupboards, apparently for potions vials and then for teabags.

Harry leaned against the doorframe as Snape prepared a pot. "How is it that you know him at all?" he asked. "I mean, I know you know my Aunt and I guess you were a lot closer to my mum than I'd have thought. How though?"

Snape crossed his arms and watched the kettle boil. Harry had a brief impulse to tell him that it might never boil if he kept watching, but supposed the remark would only be met with a sneer. Instead of blurting it, Harry waited patiently and was eventually rewarded.

"I grew up in a place called Spinners End, an old mill town in the Midlands. An altogether depressing place even now, but in the seventies it was truly dismal. Your mother and aunt lived nearby. To cut a long story short, Lily and I became friends after I learned she had been performing accidental magic. For a few years, Lloyd stayed with Lily's parents while his father worked out of a nearby barracks. He was a military brat and we had little in common, but he was a decent sort. We sparked up a different sort of acquaintance to the friendship I had formed with your mother."

The kettle clicked off, but Snape did not move to pour-out. Instead, he gazed into the middle distance in a way which suggested that he was not really seeing the present, but was instead lost in a memory.

"Friendship," Snape repeated, quieter this time. "That does not do justice to what Lily was to me." He seemed to battle a sadness that had fallen upon him and turned to Harry. "Your mother was the best friend I ever had. She was loyal and clever and showed me more kindness in a handful of years than I've known in all the rest combined."

Harry met Snape's eyes and saw pain that time had only partially dulled.

"You were in love with her?" Harry asked, his voice mimicking Snape's quietness.

The question, however, seemed to slough the rest of the melancholy from the man's shoulders. Severus turned to face Harry with an odd expression on his features. "Your mother was beautiful and good down to her marrow. I loved her in life and shall love her memory always… But my proclivities lie elsewhere, as I am sure your tame mutts must have told you. Do not try to bait me." His voice fell to ice at this last and Harry almost took a step backwards at the hardness in the man's eyes.

Harry fought the impulse to retreat, and immediately it was followed by the urge to lash back at the potions professor, to mock him as he might have just a few months ago. He fought that impulse, too. Finally came the urge to hold his head as it began to ache with conflicting certainties raised by Snape's mention of the "mutts". This urge, he succumbed to.

 _Sirius died._

 _Sirius is alive._

 _You saw him die._

 _Did you?_

 _The Veil…_

 _Something in the Veil…_

A hand on his shoulder brought Harry, flinching, from his thoughts. Severus was looking at him with something which could have been concern, but was more likely wariness. The man probably regretted being stuck here with a dunderheaded boy who was apparently going bloody bonkers.

"Sorry," said Harry, dropping his eye from the black, assessing gaze of Snape.

The man arched his customary eyebrow and tilted his head minutely to the side. "For what are you apologising?" he asked.

Harry shrugged and continued to study his feet. He'd thought he'd upset the man – thought he _wanted_ him to be sorry – but it didn't seem like an apology was what Snape was waiting for, after all. And waiting he was; a silence rolled out like mist, and when Harry dared to glance up again, he found that Snape was still watching him intently.

Harry shrugged again. "I don't know what you mean by proclivities and I wasn't baiting you. Unless you mean I was doing it by asking questions about mum. I thought it was okay. So, I'm sorry about that. And I'm sorry you're stuck here with me, I suppose. I know I'm … not quite right at the moment and it must be a pain to watch me be so all over the place. I'll get better. Sorry."

Snape dropped the arm which had still been on Harry's shoulder and his eyebrows drew together in a frown, one of consideration rather than his usual scowl. He studied Harry for a long time before finally turning, collecting the tea tray and walking back to the living room.

"You mentioned a timetable," Snape said, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Might I see it?"

Harry sat back on the couch. His movements were tentative, as though he was sure the serpent in Snape was still coiled to strike, but he passed his notebook over to the man. Snape handed him a cup of tea and a few vials of potions, with a warning that he'd be best served saving the tea to wash away the taste. Harry grimaced and did as he was told.

*x*x*

Severus Snape took the timetable, Roscoe's advised regimen and his own notebook to the table, then frowned down at the boy's outline. Harry had set aside hours for physical exercise, reading, planning, magical training, and had even included a box called "Ask Snape Stuff". The last might have made him smile, except the hand it was written in was puzzling Severus.

After so many years teaching, Snape had developed something of a memory for handwriting. Indeed, not only could he look at the work of any of his students and tell you to whom it belonged, he could also look at the written work of an anonymous stranger and still, with a startling amount of accuracy, offer up details as to that person's character and intelligence. One glance at a page full of overly-large and excessively bulbous script, with circles above each "I" instead of dots, and Snape could have sketched a portrait of an empty-headed chit who was more concerned with split ends than spliced commas. A moment or two with jagged and cramped prose, full of spikes and words which wandered over the page in peaks and troughs, and Severus could detail a lazy brat more involved with quidditch than which homophone was which. Sometimes, he'd encounter elegant script which flowed and flourished with literate understanding, but which lacked the flair and sparkle of true passion for a subject. Then, Snape could imagine a studious and careful know-it-all, more preoccupied by the appearance of tried-and-tired perfection than in using their mind to wake and shake things up afresh.

There were variations upon themes, of course, but Severus knew handwriting. And he knew Harry's handwriting was untidy. Harry tended to use a capital "S" where one was not needed. Harry's full stops looked like little ticks. Harry's lowercase "a" and "u" often appeared identical. Harry Potter's handwriting conjured the image of an average intelligence in a lazy head. It was a style common to Gryffindors, now that Severus thought about it.

The writing in the notebook before him was not Harry Potter's.

Snape glanced up at the boy who was now curled up on the couch with a cup of tea balanced on a bony knee and a book resting open on his lap. On the arm of the couch, the boy was making notes in another notebook and yes, his hand glided across the page in a sure, precise manner that belied the notion that a few days ago, he had been unable to lift a spoon without his fingers trembling.

"You've been working on your penmanship, I see," Severus said eventually.

Harry looked up from his task and then back down at his notebook. A confused frown drew his dark eyebrows together. He looked back up at Snape and shook his head ever-so-slightly. "Not really," he said.

Severus returned the boy's frown. "Then perhaps it was only scrolls for my class which you appeared to compose by asking a drunken spider to scuttle through ink and then dance about the page."

Harry's frown deepened for a moment, but then the boy's brows lifted and his expression cleared. "Oh! No, I'm just shit with a quill and none of the other teachers were willing to let me use lined paper and a proper pen. Not the done thing, apparently."

"You never sought my permission," said Snape, realising as he did that they both knew what his answer would have been had Harry ever approached him about the matter. Harry let the comment go with a half shrug and smile.

At length, Snape continued. "In Slytherin, it is customary for the prefects to mentor the new snakelets in penmanship, among other things. In the past, this was the custom in other houses, too."

Harry sighed. "I can't speak for the others, but I never saw anything like that in Gryffindor. It would've been bloody helpful though."

"What was Minerva thinking?" Snape sighed, mostly to himself.

Harry replied, though the question had been largely rhetorical. "I've been asking myself the same thing, actually," he said.

Snape turned away from the paperwork and faced Harry, sensing there was more to come.

"Well," the boy continued, "she's always seemed pretty fair, you know? She has her moments of favouritism, don't get me wrong; I know damn well that she reworked the rules to get me on the quidditch team. But she's never shied away from punishing us, taking points or dressing us down, even in front of the other houses. You, Flitwick and Sprout never seem to give your pupils a bollocking, so I guess we always thought McGonagall was the tough-but-fair one, you know?"

Snape nodded. Indeed, he had thought much the same of the woman. If he had any friends, Minerva was one of them. However, the same could have been said of Albus Dumbledore.

"I was thinking about the hospital wing the night we had those chips. McGonagall and Pomfrey said they'd be coming back, but we were there a good while and they never did. Do you think Dumbledore did something to them?"

Severus watched the young man bite into his full lower lip and draw it through his teeth. He supposed Harry was gearing up to blaming himself for Albus' actions again. It would be best to stop the flagellation before it began.

"I believe it very likely that you were one of many to fall victim to Albus' machinations. I would guess that Minnie and Poppy were Obliviated before they could spread word of your condition. Nymphadora, too, probably had her already rather hollow head further emptied. In fact, I'm forced to wonder if anyone has been left unaffected by the man's sudden insanity."

Harry considered him for a while. "If they were Obliviated, do you think that means they're fairly safe? At least for now?"

Severus nodded.

"Is there a way to undo it? Obliviation, I mean. I know Lockhart has been in Saint Mungo's since the incident in the Chamber of Secrets…"

Snape shook his head. "I thought about looking into it several years ago, but then I began making improvements to the Wolfsbane potion and put the idea aside. I shall have to think on it further now."

"You considered it?" Harry asked. "Does that mean you think a cure is possible?"

Snape smirked in his most Slytherin manner. "With skill and perseverance, everything is possible, Mr. Potter."

Harry offered a rather tired chuckle. "I never took you for an optimist, Severus."

Severus pretended to disdain the very thought, and turned back to the paperwork.

A few minutes later, he handed a revised version of the timetable back to Harry and waited for the boy to absorb it. It was much the same as the original, but with a few more hours for rest, at least for now. Severus had also added a slot for medical matters and space he'd divertingly named "Ask Harry Stuff".

Harry's lips quirked when he saw the box and Snape pretended to ignore his amusement. After all, if the boy realised that those periods would basically consist of counselling sessions, he might feel less inclined to chuckle. Severus had deliberated over whether to add them, but Harry's experiences, his continuous need to apologise and the tenacity of his quilt were all poisonous to a young and exhausted mind. Mixed together, they would kill him.

Severus Snape found himself unwilling to allow such a thing. So, while he was perhaps the last choice most would have made for the role of therapist, he was Harry's only option. All he could do was try.

*x*x*

Several hours later, Harry lifted himself out of the medicated bath water and avoided looking at himself in the little mirror. Perhaps, in a week or so, after a bit more food and a few more potions, he'd look. But not tonight. He towelled himself dry and brushed his teeth, before making his way out into the living room.

For the first three days, Harry had been unconscious. For the next five, he had drifted, rested, eaten and wept. Each night he had been fast asleep before the potions professor had even considered turning in. Furthermore, each night he had been dressed in simple cotton pyjamas that had been in one of the storage boxes, and which Snape had resized to fit him.

Tonight, however, he was wearing black and green pyjamas that he suspected Draco had supplied. They were rich and silky and they slipped over his skin like oil. Harry couldn't decide if he liked them or not. They were soft, to be sure, but the slippery caresses made him feel a little uncomfortable.

He rubbed a towel over his hair and then emerged from the bathroom feeling oddly nervous.

Snape glanced up from where he was sat on the couch and, after a breath and a blink, shutters closed over his expression. The man stood and walked to the bathroom to perform his own night time ablutions.

Harry climbed onto his bed, which Snape had transfigured to seem less like a gurney. It was remarkably comfortable and the duvet was thick and heavy. The weight was reassuring, and Harry tugged the blanket up so that only his remaining eye, his scar and above were left uncovered.

After a while, Severus came out of the bathroom, wearing pyjamas similar to those Harry had been given, but in black and silver. Harry studied the man as he did a quick circle around the room, putting a book back on the shelves and then spelling the towels dry before putting them away. Again, Harry was reminded of the man's startling youth. Out of his robes, he looked younger than ever. In fact, the man was in better shape than Harry would have ever imagined. His hips were narrow and his shoulders broader than they seemed by day. Strangest of all was the man's neck. Harry was so accustomed to seeing Snape in high, starched collars that the man's neck was oddly fascinating. Pale. Slightly corded where neck met shoulder. A subtle dip under his Adam's apple.

Weird.

Harry removed his glasses to force himself to stop staring. A moment later, he saw a Severus-shaped blur climb into bed. Harry rolled onto his side and allowed his eye to close.

"Goodnight, Severus," he mumbled as he felt himself begin to drowse.

The last thing he heard before nodding off was Severus' deep, soft voice saying, "Sleep well, Harry."

 **A/N** **–** **I've caught up with myself! From here on, updates will be less frequent, but I'll aim for at least one post a week. I appreciate nagging and ideas in comments and messages. My email is my username at gmail, so feel free to drop me a line! It'd be great to hear constructive thoughts and to receive a nudge to get me writing.**

 **Does anyone know if there's a best day to post? Should I just aim for weekends?**

 **You've all been fantastic so far, and I really TRULY appreciate each and every drop of encouragement you've sent. Thanks! xxx**


	19. Chapter 19 - Filtering

Chapter 19 – Filtering

A/N – Christmas = delays. Sorry guys! xxx

Recovery is often a slow thing. It is a melting glacier or the first deliberate, unhurried tendrils of warmth after a long winter. Try to catch it happening, and it becomes a watched kettle, stubbornly unboiling. But glance away for a moment; allow a breath or two to pass, and then turn back, and sometimes, little changes start to become apparent.

It was after another week of being in the Vacuum Sanctum that Harry began to note the first signs of physical change in himself. Rest and food made him stronger. The gentle exercise Snape helped him with allowed that strength to become a less fragile thing. Through the post box, they had received a treadmill and some charmed hand weights which knew just how heavy to be at any given time. They had also received boxes of potions vials that all bore Severus' master's mark: a snake curled around a cork-stopped bottle, with S.T.S at the bottom. There were nutrient potions, bone-strengthening draughts, muscle-repair tonics and a bottle of disconcertingly brown sludge which, when Harry added a few drops to his bath, made his scars fade from angry gashes to silver ribbons.

Harry was grateful for all of the potions. Each of them was making his recovery a much faster and much less painful thing, but he thought he might have sacrificed all of them for the opportunity to get his hands on a few purple vials of dreamless sleep.

The link to Voldemort was interrupted, so the visions couldn't get through. But the dreams did. The nightmares.

Once, back when he was in primary school, one of his teachers had been teaching a class about forces and how they had helped shape Surrey. During one memorable lesson, Harry's teacher had brought in a jar full of clear water. Settled at the bottom of the jar was an inch-thick layer of sediment. At the start of the lesson, Harry's teacher had shaken the jar and suddenly, what had been clear water on a bed of dirt, had become a whirling maelstrom of opaque, brown muck. The teacher explained how gravity caused the grit to sink and the class had watched the jar slowly turn clear and settled again.

For the last week, Harry had been feeling more and more like that shaken jar.

The gentle exercise was fine, good even! It helped Harry feel stronger and more awake than he had in a while. The hours of meditation Snape had been guiding him through were good, too, and they helped him to direct his focus away from his troubled past and his uncertain future. They read; they wrote; they breathed a little easier. It all should have made for a rather nurturing time of rest and recuperation.

However, Snape had stuck to the timetable, and once a day, they sat on the couch and he proceeded to "ask Harry stuff".

It had been fine to begin. The first afternoon they'd sat down together with discussion in mind, Snape had started gently.

"What was your favourite lesson in school before Hogwarts?" he had asked. They'd been sat at the table, with cups of tea in their hands.

"Art and English," Harry replied, and he had smiled at the barest hint of surprise on Snape's face. "I like making things," he explained. "And despite what you think, I like to read. I liked to escape in stories, yeah, but I also liked learning. Not like Hermione," he admitted. "She likes to know things, but I liked learning them. Do you know what I mean?"

Snape considered him a moment but eventually shook his head, not seeing the distinction.

Harry tried to explain. "Hermione likes to have the answers. She likes to be the smartest person in the room and I guess she has reasons for that." He paused, thinking about how to explain what he was trying to say. "But, I once read that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I think if I ever said that to Hermione, though – and believe me, I've been tempted more than a few times – she'd see it as a kind of blasphemy. To her, I think "clever" is synonymous with "right". It's why she puts so much faith in the teachers. I just think that there's bigger stuff the learn about, you know? There's more than rules and lessons and what Albus fucking Dumbledore says is right. Hermione likes facts. She could tell you the birth-date and death date of any notable wizard of the last five centuries. She could tell you their biggest achievements and reference their spells and theories in any essay you'd care to set her."

"Surely, she only knows these things because she has taken the time to _learn_ them," challenged Snape.

Harry shrugged, knowing he wasn't really explaining himself. "Yeah, but she only learned them to _know_ them."

Severus' eyebrow did what it did best.

Harry had taken a second and then grinned. "Maybe it's the difference between a bright witch who knew how to successfully brew Polyjuice potion in her second year, because she had read it in a book, and a young man who wanted to learn how bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. Would you have been content to know the rules of potions, or did you long to learn just exactly how and why a softly simmering cauldron, not a barely boiling one, is needed for a calming draught?"

The light of understanding had suddenly gleamed in Severus' eyes and he had finally nodded.

It had been Harry's turn to "ask Snape stuff" then, and he had decided to keep it simple, too. He had a plethora of Big Questions to ask, but after such a gentle beginning, he was loath to broach them and shatter the tentative peace.

"What's your favourite book?" he had asked, and then quickly added: "Your favourite fictional book, I mean. No potions manuals, please!"

The barest hint of a wry smile had tilted the man's lips. "I have less time to read for pleasure than I would like, but in my youth, I read a lot. I'm not sure I could choose a favourite without feeling like I was discrediting some text or another. I've loved Shakespeare and Dickens, but I've also enjoyed Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and even a few muggle authors."

Harry was surprised and they'd talked books after that. Severus even wrote down a few titles to request through the post box at the next opportunity. It had been good. The sediment was undisturbed.

The next night, the first shakes, small though they were, began stirring up the nightmares.

"Of which of your achievements are you most proud, Harry?" Severus had asked him over another cup of tea.

Harry had looked at him sharply. So often in the past, such a question from his man would have been rhetorical and intended to sting. It would likely have led to accusations of arrogance and points deducted from Gryffindor. But instead, the man looked almost blandly curious.

Harry considered. He wanted to answer honestly, but didn't know what to say. He was a good flyer, he supposed, but that didn't really feel like something he'd "achieved" as he'd not really had to work for it. Flying was as easy and as natural as breathing to him, after all.

He was good at being quiet. He was good at keeping secrets.

He was an average student, though he knew he could do better with less worry and less loyalty to Ron – who saw classes as little more than a blip between goofing off, quidditch and Hogsmeade.

He could cast a corporeal Patronus, and he'd worked hard to be able to do that. That thought led to memories of being crouched over Sirius while dementors closed in, and that thought led to further thoughts of his godfather, so Harry turned his consideration elsewhere.

After another short while, in which Harry thought and Snape watched, Harry finally spoke. "The DA," he said. "I hate the link to Dumbledore, but I guess I'm happy that it helped so many people. We all did pretty well in the exams and I think, maybe, that the DA might've done just a little help. Is… is that the sort of thing you mean?"

Snape had sipped from his coffee cup. Instead of answering Harry, he responded with another question. "You do not consider defeating The Dark Lord as an infant worthy of pride?"

Harry grimaced and shook his head. "I can only remember about five seconds of it all and it's nothing to be proud of. I remember dad telling mum to take me and go, then my mum pleading with Voldemort. After that, I hear the bastard laugh and there's a green light. Mum screams. Then everyone but me is dead. What's to be proud of?"

Harry could feel Snape's eyes on him, but he didn't look up to meet his studying gaze, and Snape didn't offer any empty platitudes, for which Harry was grateful.

At length, Harry had taken his turn. "Do you know what happened to Sirius?"

Snape frowned. He recalled that confusing scene from Harry's pensieve memories. He'd been puzzled by it at the time, but there had been more pressing matters. "I was informed that Bellatrix Lestrange cast the killing curse on him and that he then fell into the Veil. The Light who fought that night all corroborate the information, yourself included."

Harry considered. "What about the Death Eaters you're in contact with?"

Snape shook his head. "I've been summoned but twice this summer. In the first case, The Dark-" He paused, took a breath and finally said, " _Voldemort_ was expressing his displeasure about the incident in the Department of Mysteries." Snape had winced slightly at the memory of the meeting and Harry surmised that the Cruciatus had been used liberally. "The second summoning was just a few weeks ago and he was planning how to get the captured Death Eaters – Lucius included - out of Azkaban."

Harry had taken a sip of his tea and tried to put his thoughts in order. "I don't remember all of that night," he began. "What I do remember doesn't make much sense. There's something about doors and scorch marks. Then I think the memory goes haywire because then there's something about that old Bible story where Herod's men chalked doors…"

Snape frowned. "If Ms. Granger's testimony is to be believed, she marked doors in the Department of Mysteries, once you had all tried them."

Inside Harry's mind, a curtain of fog of which he'd been unaware, suddenly lifted. He smiled at his potions professor. "That's it!" he exclaimed. "That's been bothering me for months! Thanks."

Severus nodded and sipped his tea.

Harry continued. "There were brains in jars. Or… No, I think there really were. I think they hurt. And there were time-turners… Something happened and they all got caught in some weird time loop and everything about it felt wrong – it hurt my magic to be near it - but they just kept falling and turning and the brains did something to Hermione – or was it Ron? – and then I think there was screaming, and then-"

Harry's voice – which had been gaining speed and volume as his thoughts tumbled over each other – stopped suddenly as he had found his upper arms being firmly gripped by the long, tapered hands of Severus Snape.

"Breathe. Be still," the man commanded.

Harry had obeyed. He breathed deeply, surprised to find his lungs aching for oxygen. He forced himself to be still and found his hands clenched and twisting in his lap. His right foot was tapping out an anxious tattoo onto the floor.

They hadn't talked much more that night, and Severus had avoided the subject of Sirius for the time being. Whatever had happened in the Department of Mysteries had evidently affected Harry more deeply than even the death of a loved one.

That was the night the terrors had really started.

Harry was grateful that they seemed to have been silent so far. Back at Hogwarts, it wasn't unusual for him to scream himself awake at night. There however, he could cast a silencing charm around his four-poster, and deal with the fear he felt upon waking privately. Here, such a thing was proving difficult. Despite his show of wandless skill under extreme circumstances, his magical reserves were still replenishing themselves. Despite surreptitious efforts before sleep, Harry suspected that there were some disturbed nights ahead for both he and Severus.

Too soon, the questions had begun to cut deeper and the waters of Harry's mind felt more and more stirred up and murky. Snape asked about Harry's relationship with his friends. They discussed the time Harry had set a snake free at the zoo. They talked about each and every time Harry had faced Voldemort, except for the last. At first, the sediment had settled quickly and Harry could clear his mind a little, occluding as he had taught himself. But as the days passed and the questions dredged deeper, that illusion of clarity afforded by the settled, secret darkness, was getting harder to restore.

Today, for a change, Harry started their daily question-time. He had a headache already and wanted to put off what he suspected might be coming, given the air of discomfort lurking Snape's usual stoic demeanour.

"So, did you create The Shade?" Harry asked. They were sat, as had become their routine for this part of the day, at the table. A pot of tea steamed between them. Harry's fingers, clasped around the warm mug, were far less skeletal than they had been even a week ago, and his skin was less grey.

Snape shook his head. "I did not. Sandra was the founder. She is from a very wealthy muggle family, the rest of whom were killed in a Death Eater revel during the first war. I aided in her escape and helped her somewhat after the fact. Since that night, she has used her family money to build The Shade. I have assisted and offered advice where I could. I've remained involved over the years, but indirectly. The Shade was established to be something of a failsafe, should Albus ever fall."

Harry frowned, "You mean if he died? You wanted to have a backup plan just in case the person who stepped into Dumbledore's wasn't up to the challenge?"

They both left it unsaid that Albus had fallen in a way neither would have anticipated. Instead, Snape nodded. "The knowledge that The Shade was working and growing quietly in the background has been a comfort I've been unable to acknowledge for some time. Now that I must align myself with them, I do so with a certain amount of trust. However, I trusted Albus Dumbledore more, once."

"So… are you saying I shouldn't trust them?" Harry asked.

"I'm saying that you should not trust them simply because I might. I have rather an unfortunate history of trusting entirely the wrong people, Harry."

Harry's frown grew deeper and he chewed on his bottom lip. He looked away from Snape and thought about the man's surprisingly honest words.

What Harry had seen of The Shade so far was promising. They were evidently far more forward-thinking than either the Dark or the Light, in Harry's experience. Tŷ Cysgod was a working example of what could be achieved when magic and science met. And if what he'd been told so far was true, their aim bore in mind a much bigger picture than Harry had ever considered. All his life had come down to Voldemort, Dumbledore and the Ministry. He'd not really ever thought to look beyond them until now.

Furthermore, they had stepped in to save his life with the Vacuum, even though it meant that they would put the magnificent device out of commission for the next decade. Just for him. Did that make them decent and benevolent, or were they just willing to pay a hefty price to ensure The Boy Who Lived's cooperation in the future? He was undoubtedly indebted to them now, after all. What Fudge would have given to be able to say the same.

At length, Harry looked at Severus again. The man's face had become blankly-masked and Harry realised that the last thing Snape had said was that Harry should question his judgement. No doubt, the man was thinking that Harry's long deliberation was because he was doing just that.

"I trust you," Harry said. He blurted it, really, and a blush quickly followed the declarative. Snape almost looked startled and Harry rushed ahead. "I didn't always," he confessed. "I've thought a whole bunch of times that you were trying to kill me, actually, but every time I thought that, it turned out that the opposite was true and you'd been saving my life all along. Of course, by that logic, maybe the one time I trust you with my life, it'll turn out that you had a knife to my throat the whole time!"

He followed the babbled last sentence with a high pitched, nervous laugh which had meant to say "I'm kidding, of course," but which had sounded more like "Oh god, why did I just say _that!?_ Please don't kill me!"

For a second, it looked like Snape was trying to fight back a sneeze and Harry had the irrational idea that the man was supressing a laugh. Soon enough, though, it was gone, whatever it was.

"I vowed to protect you," Severus said, eventually.

"I haven't made it easy," Harry replied, almost smiling.

Severus sipped his tea, frowned, and cast a warming charm on the teapot. When his eyes met Harry's eye again, their expression also looked a little warmer.

"A lot of things would have been easier if I had not been so eager to see and hate James Potter in an eleven-year-old boy." Snape frowned. "I regret it, Harry."

Harry put down his cup and placed a hand on Snape's recently-unmarked forearm. The man looked up quickly, startled at the contact. Harry offered a little smile, hoping that the man would start to understand that he really didn't blame him. They'd both been manoeuvred so skilfully into playing their parts with aplomb.

"I know," Harry said, softly. "I told you on my deathbed, didn't I? And if it means anything, I don't blame you and I forgive you and I wish you could do the same for yourself."

After a second, Snape placed a hand over Harry's and patted it a couple of times, acknowledging the show of support.

Harry's smile grew and he hoped he'd offered a little comfort to the man who was helping him so much.

Severus was glad and pleasantly surprised to find Harry's fingers warm under his. There hadn't been enough meat on his bones to exude any heat until now. It was a comfort to see the young man recovering.

Comfort. Severus had resolved days ago that he would need to play the role of confidant and counsellor to Harry, if the young man was to have a hope of recovering his fragmented sense of worth. Yet here Severus was, taking comfort in the teenager's easy forgiveness instead.

He gently squeezed the fingers in thanks.

"It is time to talk about your family now, Harry."

Harry removed his hand from Severus' arm and tried to control the rising tide of panic and the swirling storm of black and bitter filth.

"I know," said Harry.

Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear vial that Harry recognised instantly as Veritaserum, and placed it on the table.

Harry stared at the vial of clear liquid on the table before him. His first instinct was to recoil, but he suppressed it. Instead, he looked at his professor from beneath low eyelashes and said, "Do you think it will make it easier?"

"I'm not sure anything will make it easier to share this, Harry. But the serum will make it so the words flow instead of getting stuck behind shame or embarrassment. Veritaserum also works well to circumvent faulty memory charms and can even indicate where a working charm exists. But this is simply a suggestion. If, at any point, you can't continue, you may say so and I will give you the antidote."

Harry bit his lip and considered.

Mostly, he never wanted to have this conversation. He wanted to move on and forget about Vernon and Dudley. He wanted to put it away in a little jar and let all of the yuckiness sink and settle and never shake it up again.

Bet there was another part of him, perhaps the part which made him a contender for Gryffindor, that knew that would just be another illusion, another lie in a life filled with them. His thoughts didn't need stillness and time to fester; they needed a filter. A true cleansing.

And Veritaserum could do that: help him to filter out the words without the mess of all the emotions. Maybe if he could share the words with Snape, the emotions left behind would be easier to sort through.

The truth shall set you free, so they said.

Before he could think about it further and talk himself out of it, Harry nodded. He squeezed his eye shut and opened his mouth. A moment later, he felt the drops under his tongue and then a sense of utter peace washed through him.

This was _wonderful_. This was even better than he had felt under Imperius, perhaps because he was here by choice and not at the whim of a mad-eyed imposter. His limbs felt pleasantly heavy, while his head seemed to be floating. His chest lost some of the tightness which he was so accustomed to that he hadn't even noticed it was there. His vision was slightly blurred, but it felt like it would be too much of a bother to focus and sharpen his gaze.

Beside him, a black blur that he knew to be Severus Snape began to talk.

"I will begin with three questions, of varying complexity, to test the potion. Tell me your name."

"Harry James Potter." Oh. That was wonderful, too. It was like breathing after being underwater. It was like flying after a life trapped on land.

"What form does your Patronus take?"

"A stag." For a second, Harry paused. He could tell that the answer was enough to satisfy the serum, but there was a slight itching deep in his throat which let him know that true honesty would require more detail. Seeing no need not to fully appease the serum, Harry continued.

"It takes the form of Prongs, my father's Animagus form." Ah, yes. That was much better. He floated on the joy of telling a better truth.

"Who is your best friend?"

A longer pause this time. Harry _wanted_ to answer honestly, but the question demanded a truth he did not have in an instant. After a moment, the itching in his throat turned to a burning, and Harry found he had to open his mouth and start talking, despite not having a clue what he was going to say.

"I want to answer honestly but I'm finding it difficult," he was forced to admit. "My first thought was of Ron and Hermione. They have been good to me in the past, but we have grown apart. I've begun to resent them at times. I don't trust Ron as much as I did before fourth year, and I sometimes think Hermione sees herself more as a carer than as a friend. I love them both, but I don't believe they love me."

Itch.

Burn.

The serum was unsatisfied.

"Luna and Neville have been my friends since we met. I love them too, and I feel very protective of Luna. She's special and I think she might genuinely like me for who I am. I don't understand why. We are both misfits and I trust her more than most."

Better, but not enough.

"Hagrid was my first friend. He was kind to me. He is always kind to me. But he is also in awe of me. I've not been as good to him as he deserves, although I love him. I visit less than he would like and I sometimes agree with Ron and Hermione when they insult his intelligence or teaching ability. He's a good friend to me. I'm not a very good friend to him. I think he deserves better than me."

Itch.

"Dobby is my friend, but I've treated him a lot like I've treated Hagrid. He is in awe and he loves me. I feel bad that I don't show him how fond I am of him in return, but his worship makes me uncomfortable. I shouldn't be worshiped. He's so innocent. He doesn't see how similar we are to each other."

"Hedwig is my friend. She might be dead. She might not be dead. It hurts to think about. If she is alive, she is a friend. She made summers better. I sometimes don't visit the owlery for days at a time. I think she deserves better than me, too. I hope she's not dead; I love her."

Burn.

"Sirius sees my dad in me more than you ever did. He called me James, sometimes. I love him and don't mind much if he sees James in me. It might be better. I think I'll disappoint him.

"Remus… I wish Remus was my father. I love him very much. Sometimes, I think of him that way. It feels like I'm betraying James. I didn't know James. Remus respects me. I don't know why."

"You…" Harry paused. "You've hated me and helped me more than anyone. I'm grateful for both. You loved my mum. I want to be your friend, I think. You deserve a real friend who loves you and isn't just using you. You deserve better."

A pause and then Harry whispered, almost desperately. "Either I don't have a best friend, or I don't know the answer to your question."

At last, the itching and burning both subsided. His head floated away again and a gentle numbness washed through his nerves. He sighed in relief.

It was several minutes before the Snape-shaped blur spoke again, and when it did, its voice sounded weird.

"How often did your family abuse you, Harry?"

"Every day I was with them." He could have left it at that, but chose not to. "When they took notice, they hurt me or used me. When they pretended I didn't exist, they neglected me or ignored me. When I was small and lonely in my cupboard, I sometimes wished they would take notice again. I'm …" Harry stopped. He had been about to say, "I'm a freak," but found that he couldn't. The burning stopped him. Instead, what came out was, "I think I'm a freak. I think I'm disgusting." Yes, that was better. Same difference, anyway.

"Please clarify what you meant when you said they "used" you."

"I cooked. I cleaned. I did whatever they wanted."

"Do you remember the first time you were abused sexually?"

A pause. "I might. It's blurry. I was little. I could still stand up in my cupboard without having to crouch. Vernon made me touch him before he'd let me have water. I did and didn't understand what was happening. I knew enough to know it was wrong, but not enough to know why it was wrong or how wrong it was. It progressed from there. You saw in the pensieve."

"Thank you, Harry. Here." With that, Severus handed Harry the antidote. Harry swallowed and slowly felt the weight of the world settle back onto his shoulders.

Oh Merlin.

Oh God.

Oh Jesus Gobstoning _Christ_.

It was hard to breathe. No, it was _impossible_ to believe. The things he'd said. The things he'd admitted. Harry squeezed his eye shut and forced his lungs to expand.

A few deep and shuddering breaths later, he opened his eye and met the steadying gaze of Severus Snape. Dark and warm and completely without judgement. But the stoic visage had fallen. For a second, Harry thought he saw a trace of pity, but no. The man looked sad and somewhat concerned, but that wasn't the same as pity.

Snape went blurry again and Harry wiped away the forming tears quickly with the back of his hand.

"I thought Ron was my best friend," he said, before Severus could say anything about him getting weepy. He'd done his crying in two bathtubs; he didn't need to be bawling again now. Big, fat tears kept pooling.

"And I didn't know how bad I'd been to Hagrid and Dobby." More tears and his nose started to sniffle. The back of his hand was so wet now that he was just spreading the tears around.

"And Remus. I want Remus to be…" There was no fighting it. The tears were coming fast and hot.

Suddenly, warm and dry fingers circled his wrists and pulled his sodden hands away from his face. Harry looked up into the steady dark eyes again as Snape conjured a handkerchief and wiped Harry's face clean. Once done, one of those long, warm hands curled around Harry's neck and pulled him into what could only be described as a hug.

Change can be a slow thing. It is the first turning leaf of autumn or the first star to wink through the night sky. It's hardly ever an easy thing to notice while it is happening. But glance away for a moment; allow a breath or two to pass, and then turn back, and sometimes, little changes start to become apparent.

*x*x*

That night, the nightmares ended their silence.


	20. Chapter 20 - Nightmares

**Chapter 20 - Nightmares**

Harry's mouth was full of loose and rattling teeth. He supposed they were his own, though there seemed to be more filling the space than could really be accounted for by one man. His cheeks bulged with them – old and rotten and sharp. He longed to spit them out, so he did, but as soon as they were gone, scattered over an unfamiliar tiled floor, Harry felt more teeth grow and fall out and fill his mouth to bursting again. Eventually, he stopped trying to spit out the bones and looked around.

The corridor was long – so long that Harry could not see its end from where he stood at the beginning. Dimly-burning chandeliers hung from high, arched ceilings. Mahogany panels adorned the walls and candelabras burned along the length of the hallway, as far as Harry could see. Between them, portraits hung. Massive paintings which depicted figures in aging oils, in massive scale.

Harry looked to his right to see the large portrait of what appeared to be a man, based on the robes and the style of hat. However, Harry couldn't be sure, as only the back of the person had been painted. Looking around, the same could be said for the subjects of each and every one of the portraits Harry could see. All of the subjects seemed to have their backs to him.

Harry began to walk. As he moved down the corridor, he sometimes thought he saw the figures twitching and writhing in his peripheral vision. However, every time he turned to catch them at it, they were still as any portrait in a muggle museum.

With every step that Harry took, his sense of unease grew, until it turned to a slow and creeping horror. The slow and creeping horror grew and grew and so did a sudden certainty that he was not alone in this place.

There was something behind him.

Not chasing, not stalking, not at any distance. There was something _right_ behind him. Something massive. Something dark. Something wrong. He could feel its breath ruffling the hair on his head. He could sense its power reaching out to consume him.

Harry couldn't run. He was utterly paralysed in his terror. He felt like he couldn't breathe around the mouthful of teeth, either. He was ensnared by the utter and absolute certainty that his survival depended on keeping completely still. A flinch, a blink or a breath would end him.

He could not move his eyes to look at them, but Harry was certain now that every painting was juddering and twitching in sick, shuddering excitement as he stood paralysed.

Behind him, the beast reached out.

Harry couldn't help it. He screamed.

*x*x*

If Severus Snape's mind was a finely-tuned instrument, then his body was a subtly-sharpened blade. Before his consciousness had even processed the fact that he was awake, he had already retrieved his wand from beneath his pillow and aimed it at the screams.

A second later, he was on his feet beside Harry's bed as the scream which had woken him turned to a strangled croaking on the young man's parted lips.

"Renervate!" said Severus, sharply.

Harry's left eye flew open and the boy scrambled backwards until he was sitting against the headboard with his hands around his knees. A burst of Harry's slowly-returning magic had pushed Snape back a few steps as the terrified teenager awoke, but he steadied himself quickly and was back at Harry's side before the younger man had quite gathered his wits. Severus sat on the bed and gripped Harry's shoulders. The gesture had seemed to comfort the boy before, and Snape hoped it would do so again.

"You are safe, Harry," Snape told him, his voice as low and as soothing as he could make it. "You were having a nightmare. Be still."

Harry shook uncontrollably under Severus' hands.

"Breathe, Harry. Just breathe."

Harry's eye snapped to Snape's face and gazed at him with a desperate intensity. Severus met the gaze, keeping his own as steady and as stoic as he could, hoping it would, in turn, steady the young man in his grasp.

Sure enough, after a while, Harry's pupil shrank from the wide black chasm of terror and, after a long blink and a slow breath, he seemed to have collected himself.

"Sor-" Harry began.

"Don't," Snape interrupted. He gave the young man's arms a hopefully-comforting squeeze and finally released him. "You have a habit of apologising unnecessarily. It's irksome." The words were said softly, with a trace of humour that felt so rusty that Severus was certain it would be missed. Harry didn't smile, he was too soon out of terror to manage such a thing, but a softening around the young man's eyes told Snape his effort was at least acknowledged.

"It _was_ a nightmare, yes?" Snape asked as he lifted a wool blanket from the foot of Harry's bed and wrapped it around the young man's still slightly-trembling shoulders. "The visions should not be able to reach you in the Vacuum."

Harry looked down at the blanket with an expression of mingled surprise and gratitude before pulling it more tightly around his thin form. The fear was abating now, though there was a metallic aftertaste to the recent horror which he thought might linger.

"Just a nightmare." Harry's voice held a note which suggested to Severus that the boy was trying to convince himself.

Severus held in a sigh. He had been sleeping rather well, and his conjured bed was surprisingly warm and comfortable. He mourned its loss as he stood. "Come on," he said. "You take a blanket and sit on the couch, and I'll see about getting us something warm to drink. No doubt Molly Weasley would prescribe cocoa or some such abhorrently-sweet beverage, but we shall make do with camomile tea, I think. Perhaps talking about this nightmare will help."

Harry looked unsure about that last, but he obediently got to his feet and gathered the duvet and blankets from the beds and settled himself onto the couch.

Severus carried a tray of hot tea back into the "living room" to see a pale and anxious Harry bundled up underneath a duvet, biting his nails. Snape's duvet was slung haphazardly over the opposite arm of the couch and Severus was strangely touched that Harry had thought of his comfort while the young man was so shaken. He placed the tray down on the coffee table and paused a moment before finally sitting on the couch and pulling the duvet over himself. The fabric still held a trace of his slumbering body heat, and Severus was glad of it. The Vacuum Sanctum was a marvellous contraption, but it was also quite chilly at times.

Snape passed Harry a steaming cup of tea and realised the boy had been watching him carefully as he sat and arranged the blanket around his pyjama-clad knees.

"Thanks," Harry said, as he clutched the mug and ceased his nail biting.

For a while, there was an almost comfortable and surprisingly companionable silence. It wasn't until their tea had cooled enough to sip that Harry finally broke the silence.

"You're different," he said.

Severus sipped his tea and waited for Harry to elaborate, though he knew what the younger man was getting at.

"I know you've saved my arse a thousand times, and you've worked harder to fight Voldemort than maybe anyone. I know you've been playing a part for a long time and I guess having the Dark Mark removed might account for some of it but…" Harry hesitated.

Snape decided to come to his rescue. "But you never imagined being bundled under a duvet while your greasy old potions professor brought you tea?"

Harry blushed. Severus was intrigued to notice that the blush was almost a perfect line across his cheekbones and up over the tops of his ears. It was … strangely endearing. He clamped down on that observation; it was uncomfortable and Harry was talking again.

"Pretty much," the young man admitted.

Severus considered. "I feel different," he admitted at last. "Perhaps the mark affected me more that even I realised. Since you removed it, I have noticed more than just the absence of pain. It's not just that the Dark… that _Voldemort_ is no longer a call away, either. I feel stronger. I feel younger. I feel more myself, though I imagine I seem less so to you."

When Severus turned back to Harry, the boy was considering him more keenly. The trace of blush still on his cheeks was just slightly interrupted by the scar which bisected the right side of Harry's face.

"You look younger, too," Harry said. "I mean, I guess you look your age now. It used to be easy to forget that thirty-six is really rather young, especially in wizarding terms. It's more obvious now."

Severus ignored the uncomfortable squirming in his stomach. Perhaps it was too late for tea, camomile or not. "Your overzealous Episkey is quite the tonic, it seems." He kept his tone light. "When all of this is over, you should consider trying your hand at cosmetic mediwizardry. I'm sure Narcissa Malfoy would give up every house elf she has to get rid of her crow's feet."

Harry chuckled softly and looked askance at Severus, who simply sipped his tea. Neither of them mentioned that Narcissa Malfoy might already be dead at her Lord's hand, given Draco's choices.

After a long moment in which Harry's posture seemed to lose some of its anxious stiffness, the younger man burrowed a little deeper into the duvet and described his nightmare. After he was done, Severus sighed in relief.

"It sounds like you had an anxiety dream coupled with a spot of sleep paralysis," Severus said. "Fairly common, though I'm sure that's of little comfort in the moment."

Harry put aside his now empty cup. "Actually, I like it when I can describe anything as "normal". I'm used to nightmares, but they are usually made up of memories or visions. This was different. It was weird. It _felt_ … important."

Severus placed his own cup aside and turned to face a slightly-blushing Harry, drawing up the blanket to warm his upper body. "Just because it was not a vision, does not mean the dream was not significant in some way. If you believe in such things, then its symbolism was unsubtle."

Harry snorted quietly. "Unsubtle, eh? You're going to say something about that being typical of a Gryffindor, aren't you?"

Severus could not help the laugh that escaped him. It was late; he was tired; Harry was _right._ Severus had indeed had the half-formed insult at the ready and the boy had beat him to it. The laugh was a short-lived and rusty thing, but it felt good. When he looked back at Harry to see a pleased and sleepy smile, he was glad that he had not suppressed it.

"Indeed," he said at last. "I would offer you a potion to help you sleep, but I have none at my disposal tonight. Besides, there are those who believe that dreams are a subconscious way of processing conscious events. Sybil Trelawney, no doubt, would rather suggest a more quixotic, interpretation, but that's all the more reason to consider this dream a nocturnal normality. Her track record would support the decision. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

Harry nodded and it was left unsaid that there had been a time when Snape had put enough faith in the woman's predictions to deliver one to Voldemort.

A quiet settled on them for a while, like a sleepy stretch or a deep breath before a beginning. Severus was about to break it when the smallest of snores beat him to it. Beside him, buried in a duvet and at least one wooly blanket, Harry had fallen fast asleep.

Snape reached out and pulled the blankets up so that Harry's shoulders would not get cold. Perhaps he should levitate him to the bed so that he could rest more comfortably, but that might wake him. Snape would wait a few minutes, just to make sure that Harry was deeply asleep, and then he'd return to his own bed.

He would just close his eyes for a second while he waited.

Just for a moment.

*x*x*

Harry awoke with a soft groan. His neck was a little sore from the awkward position he had slept in; his bladder was full from the midnight tea; Severus Snape's pyjama-clad arse was an inch away from his face.

At some point in the night, both sleeping men had fallen sideways in their slumber. Snape had evidently fallen onto the arm of the couch and then swung his legs up. Harry, when he had fallen sideways, must have slipped head-first into the small space between the back cushion of the settee and Severus' aforementioned arse.

 _Bloody hell._

Harry blinked his widened eyes. Once. Twice.

Severus Snape had a nice arse.

Harry blinked again. He took a few steadying breaths before easing himself out of the small space and sitting up. He moved slowly so as not to wake Snape, and made sure not to take all of the blankets – which had become rather entangled apparently – with him. For good measure, he gently tucked a part of the duvet in such a way that it hid Snape's perplexingly perfect posterior from sight.

The movement, careful though it was, made Severus stir. He stretched and made a noise that sounded almost like a low growl, before rolling slightly until he was lying more comfortably on his back. As he rolled, his pyjama shirt tugged out of shape and Harry found himself studying the man's oddly fascinating neck again. That small, diamond-shaped dip under them man's Adam's apple really was…

 _Attractive,_ said a voice in the back of Harry's mind. _The word you're looking for is attractive._

Harry half smiled, but he put his odd morning thoughts aside. He needed to pee, shower and then he thought he might take care of breakfast.

Harry carefully disentangled himself from the blankets and headed to the bathroom.

*x*x*

By the end of that week, the rest, potions and exercise had allowed Harry's body to repair and had even caused him to fill out somewhat. He even fancied that he might have grown an inch, though that might have been wishful thinking, or the fact that his unruly hair was in need of a cut.

The "ask stuff" sessions were helping, too. They had used the Veritaserum twice more, but it had not uncovered anymore hidden truths in Harry's heart. It did, however, let him put voice to things he might not have been able to express otherwise. Mostly, however, these brief bouts of talking therapy with Severus seemed to work best when Harry toiled to put his troubles into words the usual way. He found he slept better in the nights if he had to struggle a little with his demons by day.

Slowly, the shaken jar of Harry's subconscious was clearing. He had just finished explaining the concept of the shaken jar to Snape.

"I don't suppose it will ever be really crystal clear," Harry said, "but it doesn't feel as… _dirty_ as it did just a week ago. Now, instead of a billion specks of dirt, I imagine a jar of fairly clear water with a few stones at the bottom."

Severus nodded and seemed to like the image. "These stones represent your troubles, I assume?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, but not just them. Those are there – a lump of dirt for Tom, a fossil for Dumbledore…" Severus stifled a snort of amusement at the latter, but didn't interrupt. Harry smiled but continued more solemnly. "And an ugly bit of broken brick… the sort someone probably used to build Privet Drive. That's in there, too."

Harry paused, acknowledged the feelings welling up inside of him, and then moved past them. It was something Severus had been encouraging him to try in these sessions. When Harry continued, he didn't feel like he was hiding from anything. He closed his eyes and pictured the jar, consciously studying and adding to it for the first time.

"There's a pebble which looks like a sleeping dragon, curled into a spiral. I guess that's Hogwarts. The Weasleys would be something orange – tiger's eye or amber, and Hermione would be a neat and perfect little pebble." Harry didn't say how small those pieces were; his fading friendships were still a source of sadness. "Luna would be something daft and fun. Maybe a kid's marble – something a bit different but which still fits. Draco would be the other kind of marble."

Harry opened his eyes again and blushed a little. He felt silly at what he saw as some silliness. Snape, however, looked contemplative.

"A penchant for vivid visualisation is useful for meditation, and for the mental magics," he said. "You should work with the concept of this jar of yours." Severus hesitated then.

Harry was struck by the sudden idea that the man might want to ask if he was in the jar, but he discounted the thought quickly. The man might be "Severus" now, and their relationship was evolving into something new and difficult to name, but Harry didn't kid himself that the man _wanted_ any of this to be the case. He was helping Harry because Harry needed helping a Severus was a good man. Still…

"Coal," said Harry, quietly.

"Pardon?" asked Severus.

Harry flushed deeper. "You. In the jar. You're a piece of coal." Harry had apparently lost the ability to form sentences, so he took a sip of tea to try to help his mouth regain normal function.

"I'm what Father Christmas leaves for those on the naughty list? A punishment for bad little boys at Christmas?" Snape asked.

The tea Harry had just sipped went into his lungs so that Harry found himself coughing through surprised laughter. It was only through pure luck that the peppermint beverage didn't come spurting out of his nose. After he had gathered himself a little, he met Severus' eyes and was unsurprised by the glimmer of sardonic humour there. What _did_ surprise him, however, was that he thought, for the very briefest of heartbeats, that he saw a shadow of something sad in the man's eyes. Hurt? Surely not.

"No," said Harry, his voice a little choked from his spluttering. "That's not what it means. You could have been polished onyx, I suppose, or maybe obsidian. But onyx is decoratively useless. Obsidian is hard and sharp, but brittle. Coal is useful. It's fuel. It lets the fire burn. It's overlooked and even maligned at times – thanks to Santa, maybe – but without it, we wouldn't have got nearly as far as we have."

Harry took another sip of tea. He looked into his teacup as he considered his own metaphor. "Your eyes always reminded me a bit of coal, and what's so bloody wrong with coal? I always thought it was kind of pretty – all hard lines and glittering edges. It's more interesting than a boring lump of onyx, at any rate."

He hadn't meant anything by it. He had only been adding flesh to the bones of a metaphor he rather liked. It wasn't until Harry raised his eyes to see Snape regarding him with an expression of astonishment, that Harry realised what he had been saying. He felt his eye widen. The first trembling clenches of panic seized at his chest. He had to say something – _anything_ _–_ to dispel the utter idiocy of his words.

"Um…"

Well, that was bloody brilliant, wasn't it? Two seconds ago, he'd been practically waxing poetry about a lump of rock – a lump of rock he had called _pretty_ – a lump of rock he also compared to Snape's _eyes_ _–_ yet now the best he could manage was "Um"!?

"Um…"

Yes. Apparently that _was_ the best he could manage.

Harry gazed into Severus Snape's coal-black eyes with all the calm composure of a kneazle before an acromantula.

And then Snape blinked and every trace of astonishment vanished in less time than it took for Harry's heart to pound once. For the next heartbeat, the man's face was as blank as fresh-fallen snow. By the third heartbeat, a light of wry amusement lit his eyes and curved his lips.

Severus sipped from his own cup. "I don't know what to be more surprised at," he drawled. "The fact that I followed that ridiculously sentimental waffle, or that you both know and can correctly use the word "maligned" in a sentence."

"Um…"

"Yes," said Severus. "So you've said."

CHAPTER NOTE

Sorry for the wait! Xmas! New Year! Birthday! Life!

I'm never in love with my chapters, but I've been unhappy with this one for nigh-on a month now. I figured it's time to post it just so that I can stop fidgeting with it! I really want to keep the progression slow, yet needed to move things forward a little. I would LOVE feedback and advice for this one. Constructive advice. Don't make me cry!

Also, hello! x


	21. Chapter 21 - Missives and Misconceptions

Chapter 21 – Missives and Misconceptions.

"Huh," said Harry as he drew an X through Day 21 of the timetable they had drawn up for their time in the Vacuum Sanctum. They'd stuck it to the front of the "post box" with the delivery slots clearly marked. "We're over a third of the way through our time in here."

Severus Snape considered the young man's tone and found himself completely unsurprised by the disquiet he heard. After all, even though Harry would probably have chosen a different companion for his two month stay, respite from the horrors in his life was no doubt welcome. A little more surprising were Snape's own feelings.

Upon hearing that a third of their allotted time in the Sanctum had passed, Snape didn't feel relief, nor did he feel dread at the amount of time yet to tick by. Instead, he found that he could empathise with Harry's disquiet. How quickly time seemed to move in this place where it was meant to have slowed down. Sixty days had sounded like such a lot of time…

Until recently, Severus Snape would have thought he had spent too much of his life at the end of a leash to ever accept the feeling of being confined. Even at Hogwarts, before the removal of the Dark Mark, he had sometimes found his fairly large rooms to be stifling – it was part of the reason he enjoyed stalking the corridors at all hours. Not that catching the miscreants up to no good (and the resulting point deductions) didn't have appeal.

And yet, even after three weeks in the Sanctum, he found that he had yet to succumb to the dreaded cabin fever that he had been expecting. No doubt, it helped that he had spelled the lights to maintain his and Harry's circadian rhythms. Furthermore, the rigorous structure of their timetable kept them occupied while also allowing plenty of time for rest. Severus discovered that he was rather enjoying that rest, too. His body had been made stronger and healthier than it had been in years, thanks to Harry's Episkey, Roscoe's fitness regime and his own nutrient potions. And his head was clearer without the mark and the pain. Nonetheless, rest was still welcome. A break from teaching, spying, marking, planning, torturing and generally existing as himself was very, _very_ welcome.

Perhaps his disquiet stemmed from the same place that he suspected Harry's did; the world which waited for them was one which neither of them much wanted to face. Perhaps it was because, despite all of Harry's astonishing physical and magical progress, Severus knew the other man was far from recovered. But then, sixty days wasn't ever going to be enough time for such a feat. Indeed, the horrors the man had faced would likely haunt him all his days.

Or perhaps Severus' disquiet came from the fact that this sanctuary – company included – was oddly… _nice_.

He had been prepared for various eventualities when he had … _convinced_ … Roscoe that he, Severus, should be the one to accompany Harry into the Sanctum, not least of which had been the possibility that he would be locked up on his own with the corpse of his once-student for company.

He hadn't expected to find a sense of peace in here. Nor had he expected to find that Harry Potter was not the worst company one could be stuck with. In fact…

The "post box" chimed, derailing the train of Snape's thoughts. As he shook off what lingered of his reflections, he noticed Harry peering into the post-box and grinning at the larger-than-usual delivery he saw there. As well as their supply of fresh foods and potions, Severus also spotted an envelope addressed to the both of them, a small pile of fiction books that they had requested after their discussion a while ago, and what looked like a cassette player and a few tapes.

The ghost of a greasy potions master sneered in the back of Severus' mind, but closer to the surface, a less bitter man almost smiled at the expression on Harry's face and the promise of some pleasant diversion.

"Brilliant!" exclaimed Harry, as he quickly (wandlessly, wordlessly) levitated the goods onto the kitchenette table, before the post box closed again and became inaccessible for another sixty hours. A quick spell later and the food was away, leaving behind the "entertainment". Harry grabbed the envelope and ripped it open. Out fell a few sheets written in an assortment of different handwriting; a quick glance assured him that the missives were nothing to worry about and his heart eased further. Next, he took the small pile of books, grin wide and eyes bright.

"What's the special occasion, do you think?" asked Harry.

Snape thought on it for a moment before answering. "If we have passed more than a third of our time in here, then the same fraction applies beyond the Sanctum. I don't think there is any special occasion other than eight hours have passed beyond these walls. Our acquaintances have no doubt had a little time to finally think beyond the necessities and are now offering niceties."

Harry continued to smile. "Good of them to sit and write when they don't have as much time as we do, eh?"

Severus allowed his eyebrow a sarcastic arch. "One could also suggest that it would ensure for some painfully dull correspondence."

As Harry rolled his eye, Severus picked up the small pile of tapes and glanced through them, but in typical Lloyd Evans style, they lacked track lists or any information other than "Oldies but Goodies", or "Happy Tunes". One was confusingly titled "Movie Training Montage".

"Anything good?" asked Harry.

"Doubtful," Snape replied, passing the tapes to Harry, who snorted a small laugh. Snape turned to study the cassette player itself. The device had been modified with some kind of twirling, silver-coloured antennae which apparently allowed it to work both without a power source and in the vicinity of magic.

Harry looked from the books in one hand to the tapes in his other, then to the timetable for the afternoon. After a second's consideration, he spoke. "I'll make us up a cuppa and some sandwiches; you can choose a tape, and then we can swap our books and read our mail. How does that sound?"

Severus nodded once and allowed the bare twitch of a smile. "That sounds… nice."

Harry's lips pursed wryly, but his eye was mischievous. "Iknow "nice" used to mean "foolish", Sev. You'll have to be more Slytherin if you're hoping to sneakily insult me," he said.

The twitch of Severus' smile could not be controlled at that. He chuckled and shook his head, hoping that he was also hiding his surprise, "When have I ever felt the need to be surreptitious about insulting you, Harry?"

Harry grinned, shrugged and put the kettle on. "Fair point," he said.

"Furthermore… "Sev"?"

Harry grinned. "Serves you right for having too many syllables."

The look in the potions master's eyes was almost pleased, and Harry had to wonder if the man had ever had a pleasant nickname before. He certainly had his share of unpleasant ones, Harry knew.

A short while later, they were sat on the couch. Having read the cover blurbs of the books they had exchanged*, they turned to their mail.

In the background, Nina Simone sang "Feeling Good".

 _Harry,_

 _Three days, Potter. Three! Bloody! Days! That's how long we've had our little accord, and in that time, you've been the subject and cause of more bloody dramatics than any other Gryffindor could conceivably manage in a decade! Hemlock says at least you don't allow life to get dull. I suppose he has a point. That being said, when you get out of that box, do try to give it a rest, won't you? A small amount of dullness might be a nice change of pace…_

 _Hemlock explained the Sanctum to me and Luna, just as soon as he had repaired his broken nose. (You should ask Severus about that if he hasn't told you… I wager he has not.) It sounds like you'll be spending rather a lot of quality time with my godfather, so I thought I'd offer you a few words of advice._

 _He's not that bad when you get past the snarky dungeon-bat exterior. Just try not to irritate or bore him too badly. He detests boredom more than he hates a Longbottom near a cauldron. Basically, resist the urge to be a Gryffindor and he might not transfigure you into a pumpkin for the duration of your stay._

 _Time is shorter here, but we have started a few balls rolling. Hemlock is reaching out to his own network of real purebloods, and Luna is doing something with that coin of hers. She says she will explain tomorrow when you get back. Or in forty days. This time magic is an irksome mess, isn't it?_

 _I am not sorry that you continue to live._

 _Draco A. Malfoy._

Harry smiled, frowned and then grinned again as he read through Draco's note. The Slytherin had managed to seem concerned and be a tosser all at the same time. It was so… _Malfoy_.

He glanced up to mention his amusement to Snape, but the twin points of colour on the potions master's cheeks gave him pause. Whatever Severus was reading was making the man blush! Something about that idea made Harry uncomfortable, and he chewed at his own bottom lip.

Instead of sharing Draco's Malfoyness with the man, Harry decided to read the next letter and ignore the odd unease he was suddenly feeling. However, the next sheet was barely written upon in Luna's pretty script.

 _Harry,_

 _You_ _should_ _talk to him. Ask him about it._

 _Nobody says the nice things they think about him. Nobody is shy with the not-nice things. Be brave with the nice things, Harry. Be brave with the true things. Nice isn't foolish this time._

 _I think it was a kewpid after all. It wasn't time then. Now it's two times. One of them might be the right one._

 _I miss you. Sixty days is a very long time, even when it isn't._

 _Isn't Draco's hair very pretty?_

 _Love,_

 _x Luna x_

Harry's remaining eye went so wide that for a second it seemed at risk of popping out. Was it just him, or was Luna's oddness taking on new depths? It was strange enough when she seemed to be able to read him in his presence, but now she was doing it from a room away beyond the barrier of time itself. It was like she was inside his head.

And what exactly was she saying? Could she really be telling him to be nice to the still-snarky professor? Or was the timing of her comment purely coincidental?

Harry chewed on his lip a little more. Draco had suggested not being a Gryffindor if he wanted to build bridges with Severus. Luna almost seemed to be saying otherwise. Still, she'd never steered him wrong. Even at her weirdest, Luna had a way of hitting the nail on the head.

In the background, Sam Cooke sang " _Cupid"_.

Then there was the bit about "nice" things. Harry could well-imagine that the man was unused to compliments. The man's every action suggested that flattery would be received with scorn at best and acid at worst. Furthermore, the man had aged hard due to myriad slings and arrows, and although Harry had remedied many things, Severus Snape never had been a traditionally handsome man. But while he wasn't handsome, he was something else. Something Harry couldn't name, couldn't think about fully yet.

"You are staring at me, Harry." Snape's voice was both curious and amused.

Harry was pulled from his considerations before he had really come to any conclusion about Luna's letter or Snape. Indeed, he was unsure where his thoughts had been leading him. It seemed Luna had, in typical fashion, played the white bunny and led him down the rabbit-hole.

"Sorry," he said. "Luna has a way of making my mind wander. I was miles away."

Something nameless and barely-there flitted behind coal-black eyes. It passed so quickly that Harry thought he might have imagined it. It seemed that Severus had no response to make, so Harry ventured forth. Both of his friends had offered him advice, though it was contradictory in places. Perhaps there was some way to be brave without being a complete Gryffindor about things.

"Draco wrote me four paragraphs and managed to mention Hemlock in three of them," Harry said. He supposed if he wanted to find out about Snape's letters and what had caused the man to blush, he should start by offering information of his own. Making the man chuckle would just be a pleasant side-effect. "I think our blond Slytherin might have something of a boy-crush."

Severus didn't smile. In fact, he frowned slightly and seemed to consider Harry carefully. "Indeed?"

Harry's tummy did an unpleasant little squirm. Severus didn't look amused in the slightest and suddenly it occurred to Harry that the man's letter – the one that had caused the blushing – might have something to do with his lack of diversion. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry had assumed that the letter had been from Dr. Helbig; the woman evidently cared a great deal for Severus, after all. It was little wonder, given the man playing her knight in shining armour, and then there had been all that gallant bowing back in Tŷ Cysgod. But Severus certainly didn't look pleased with the idea of Draco having a crush on Hemlock, even if Harry hadn't meant it in any serious way. But which part discomfited him? Draco fancying a bloke? Draco fancying Hemlock? Hemlock being fancied?

Was Snape…? Did Snape…?

The squirming intensified and Harry bit his lip some more. "I… umm… I didn't mean in a romantic sense. Not really."

Severus nodded his head slowly, but his features remained rather closed. "I believe my godson is heterosexual. I had thought that his considerations might have begun a tentative entanglement elsewhere." He said this last slowly, evidently awaiting Harry's response.

Harry had to smile; he liked the sound of the phrase _tentative entanglement._ Thinking about the way Draco regarded Luna like Ron regarded a brilliant game of chess, the smile widened. "Yeah. You don't need to be a spy to notice all the glances he's been tossing Luna's way, right?"

This time, Harry had been waiting for Snape's reaction, so he saw what would have otherwise been an imperceptible easing of the man's features.

"It does not bother you?" Snape asked.

Harry frowned. This was hurting his head. "Why should it?" he asked.

Severus gestured to the sheet of paper in Harry's hand. "When a young lady makes a man's mind wander, it could be taken as a sign of deeper regard."

Harry couldn't help but laugh at that. His unsettled stomach eased and he shook his head. "No. Luna's a friend. It's nothing like that. And when you get to know her a little better, you'll find out what I mean about the mind wandering. It's like everything she says is a bloody tarot card. Sometimes, it's like there are all these different layers of meaning and sometimes it's just nonsense."

Severus nodded and eased himself back into his chair. "Do you recall the third-year essay about the uses of foxglove in the draught of cunning?" At Harry's nod, Severus continued. Ms. Lovegood returned a response of just three sentences. I have unfortunately committed them to memory." The man paused, and when he spoke again, he did so with a passable imitation of Luna's lilting cadence. "A fox is cunning enough to not worry about fingerprints, but the gloves will help them in a draft. Tea would be better, though."

A surprised laugh erupted from Harry at the impression, the words and Severus' following cocked eyebrow. "Brilliant," he chuckled.

"I have never decided whether she knew that foxglove is powerfully efficient in warming balms. Nor whether she knew that the draught brewed with a very specific tea leaf increases its power exponentially. I gave her a detention and docked ten points, just to be sure." The man mused for a while and then seemed disinclined to comment further.

Harry decided to ask again about the man's letters. "Draco says they've started some balls rolling, out there. Luna is doing something with the DA galleon and she even says how pretty Draco's hair is. What about you? Anything good in your letters?"

Severus offered a nonchalant shrug, but the pinpricks of colour were back. "Evans sends his apologies for holding a knife to my throat; Sandra has sent an update pertaining to The Shade's current research endeavours." He paused, coughed and blushed a little harder. However, this time Harry noticed what he might just call alarm in the man's eyes. "Roscoe… has sent me a copy of his skincare routine and some advice as to how I might keep my own skin "delectably creamy" and my hair at its "newfound delicious lustre". It is quite disconcerting."

Harry had been about to take a sip of magically-reheated tea and was decidedly glad he had not. It was sure to have come back out of his nose or choked him.

"Well," Harry said, his voice rather high. "I guess Draco isn't the only one with a boy-crush, eh?"

Snape looked back down at the letter, his lips a tight line. "I sincerely hope not. While Draco's fixation might be chalked up to a completely heterosexual admiration, Hemlock Roscoe is as flamboyantly gay as a flock of flamingos."

Harry frowned, not liking what sounded like prejudice in the man's words. Before he could say anything, however, Severus continued.

"Roscoe's list of conquests is as long as your list of detentions, Harry. He will flirt with anything that has a Y chromosome in the twenty-third pair, a fact that I can attest to, given his past flirtations with even a "greasy dungeon bat" like myself. But I am unused to this level of hyperbole from the man. I shall give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it is a jest meant in fun and not in ridicule. Otherwise, I shall have to reacquaint him with the Exsupercilium curse I invented in my third year."

Severus continued to regard the letter in his hand with an expression that suggested it might bite him.

 _Nobody says the nice things they think about him. Nobody is shy with the not-nice things._ Luna really did have a way of hitting that nail on the head. Sometimes with a radish, sometimes with a sledgehammer.

"Which part of the letter are you more uncomfortable with, Sev? Do you not like Hemlock's flirting because you think he's lying, or do you have something against him for being gay?"

If Harry had wanted to get the man's attention, he was successful. The expression on Severus' face flitted quickly between confusion, surprise, and outrage. There was also something guarded and, finally (predictably) the blank mask fixed itself in place.

The man said nothing.

"It's about time for an "Ask Stuff" session anyway," Harry said, softly. "Consider that my question for today."

It took a long time, long enough that Harry began to believe that the man wouldn't answer at all. When Severus did respond, he did so with a question that was asked with a gentle hesitance Harry understood to be for his sake.

"Your experiences have not made you hate those with homosexual proclivities, then?"

Harry didn't know whether to roll his eye, scowl or laugh. He supposed if he were more Slytherin, he might be able to accomplish all of them at once. But beyond his annoyance, the disgust he felt was visceral.

"If you're referring to my uncle, then you're an idiot. That man wasn't gay; he was a monster. What he did…" Harry swallowed back the bile. He squeezed his eye shut. He continued. "What he did to me was nothing to do with sex and everything to do with violence and hate and just being a fucking scumbag."

The spy could not hide behind a blank façade this time, and if Harry had not been feeling quite so upset, he might have registered the surprise and the gratification in the man's countenance. As it was, Harry was frowning down at his own hands in his lap.

"I underestimated you in this, Harry. I had assumed that your uncle's monstrosity might forever be associated in your mind with the physical acts he imposed. I confess that I am surprised." Severus' voice was soft.

Harry looked up from his lap and met the man's eyes. The coal there burned softly and Harry felt the irritation which had began to simmer within him start to abate. At last, he smiled ever so slightly. "I suppose thinking I'm an idiot is kind of your default setting, so I won't hold it against you his time. Try to break the habit though, yeah? I'm not a complete prat. I know what he did to me. I know what he was and I know what he wasn't. And I'm perfectly capable of distinguishing between someone like my uncle and someone like… Hemlock." _Be brave with the true things, Harry._ He took a fortifying breath. "Someone like me, actually."

Harry couldn't maintain the smile after whispering that last utterance. For some reason, the man's reaction meant something to him. He needed Severus Snape to accept this about him. He had never shared this aspect of himself with anyone before; it was too confusing, too messy, too rife with implications that he knew other people would make if they knew the whole story.

"You continue to upset my preconceptions about you, Harry. It is rather irritating," said the potions master, genuine astonishment in his voice.

Harry heard the man's acceptance.

He could have left things there, but he had lived crimson and gold for the last five years. "You answered my question with a question, by the way," he said, reminding Severus that he owed an answer to Harry's "Ask Stuff" question.

Severus quirked an almost smile and shrugged. "As I am neither hypocrite not homophobe, one must conclude that I doubt Roscoe's sincerity."

 _Nobody says the nice things they think about him. Nobody is shy with the not-nice things._

"You seem to have unwarranted doubts about your merits, Sev," said Harry, echoing Severus' earlier comment. "It is rather puzzling."

This time, when Severus blushed, Harry could be sure of the cause.

*The books Harry and Severus exchanged:

As their discussion of previous days included the books which turned them into readers-for-pleasure, Snape gave Harry, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams and "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding.

Harry gave Snape "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾" by Sue Townsend and "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks. He wanted to give him Philip Pullman's "Northern Lights", but Severus didn't want to begin an incomplete series, and the original trilogy wasn't complete at the time in which this is set.

A/N – Hi all! I apologise for the delay. I think I lost the plot (figuratively and literally) and I just could not get this written in a way I liked. I still don't like it all that much, but I hardly ever do, and I figured that writing and posting might get things moving again.

Maybe a beta would help… someone to hash through plot with when it just won't write itself. I'm not sure I could cope with sharing control in such a way, though. Maybe I just need head-pats and reassurance. I'm so good at talking myself out of posting my writing with you all.

I struggled with this one for reasons. For potential flamers out there, no survivor deals in a painted-by-numbers way. Being told you're not normal for feeling certain things after trauma…. well that just sucks, doesn't it? So be nice. Please.

P.S. Rest assured, I will NEVER abandon this story. Updates might be slow sometimes, but they will come eventually.

P.P.S. The collective noun for a group of flamingos is a "flamboyance".

P.P.P.S. Movie Training Montage, anyone?


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